Sketches
by Omano-chan
Summary: Stony AU! Steve has an artblock, so that leaves him with watching a TV talk-show, where there is an arrogant bastard of a guest, called Tony Stark. Who might have some resemblance to his long-lost friend - who is also Tony. And this man just might help him get over his artblock. And Steve starts sketching. Pleas R&R!
1. Chapter 1

**A/N**: This is an AU story, with no super powers and actually I just stole Tony and Steve and tried to imitate Tony's snarkiness and cute rambling. It contains a bit of angst as the story goes on (hopefully I'll get on with it, but I warn you, I'll be terribly slow because of this damn thing called school) and friendship and probably some romance? I suppose, yes.

_Summary_: Steve finally got into art school, but what the hell? he has an artblock, so that leaves him with watching a TV talk-show, where there is an arrogant bastard of a guest, called Tony Stark. Who might have some resemblance to his long-lost friend - who is also Tony. And this man just might help him get over his artblock.

_Pairing: _Steve Rogers/Tony Stark

_slight warning for my swear-word vocab..._

* * *

**Sketches**

**~1~**

~*An arrogant man*~

Steve was sitting in the corner of the couch of his small living room staring at some programme on TV. At first he didn't even want to turn it on, but he was desperate for anything that would take his mind off of his art-block.

This art-block was especially annoying. He had worked through the entire summer so that he could pay for his school and during that time when he barely found the strength in himself at the end of a day to change for bed, new ideas were bursting his mind and his hands, but now as he would be obliged to get at least a few of them done, even though his fingers were itching for a charcoal or a brush he wouldn't put a damn line on paper.

Yes, Steve was definitely beyond irritated.

Among normal terms he would be outside on a run or something to clear his head and hope for anything, a bird, a kid in the park, really, anything to kick in as inspiration. But nope. The weather was gray and rainy and cold. Dull. And shitty as it had been since the end of summer. So it wasn't helping at all either.

So it left him with the TV.

The upcoming programme finally perked up his interest. He liked this one. Well, sort of. He wasn't head over heels for talk-shows but this one – unlike all the others – sometimes had some sense and something important to say. They invited successful people, businessmen, film stars, politicians, anyone who made it big, and they talked about what motivated them, who were the important people in their lives. You know, things that would show the average people, that they aren't _that_ special.

Or maybe, that they really are _that _special to make it so far.

Some of the invited were just egoist bastards. And Steve felt only pity for them. Unfortunately there were more and more of this kind.

Not that Steve was a regular watcher of this programme. He usually wasn't even at home at this time – he was either working or at school, but now near the end-of-term exams and arts waiting for him to be done he had neither.

And there came the signal of '_Behind the stars_', conducted applauding and cheering from the audience as the camera zoomed onto the presenter, Chris Seeman, who had that foul yet in some sense attractive flashy smile plastered on his face as he waited for the clapping to cease so that he could introduce today's guest.

"Ladies and gentlemen, it's great to be here today. And it's even better that one of my greatest wishes, which I've been harbouring for like 3 years now, came true, and I can be sitting across a man who shouldn't be introduced to anyone who watches TV at least once a year or jogs passed a newsvendor boot now and then. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Anthony Edward Stark..."

As he trailed off the camera passed to the man across from Chris and his name flashed on the screen. And the audience went crazy.

Steve felt a strong urge to turn down the volume if not switch off the whole thing.

Of course, he was one of the few on Earth who had no idea who this Stark man was. He watched TV, yes, and he jogged quite a lot on the streets too, but he never cared much for celebrity news.

And the guy was just like one. As far as he could tell behind the shelter of the tinted lenses of the sunglasses and tailored, painfully fitting suit, he had the looks – the looks of a killer, but Steve would never admit that his inner thoughts formed and played with such ideas. He had tanned skin, dark hair, perfectly shaped goatee that highlighted his flashing white teeth behind the most attractive smile Steve'd ever seen. Except that it was sharp, and he was sure it didn't reach Stark's eyes.

Steve had a good ability at judging if one's smile was true or not and was quite good at reading what was behind it. Stark's smile was one flashy accessory for his appearances in the media. Charming, but he had his own thoughts of you behind those glasses. And he was already calculating. You couldn't get a win, no matter what situation you were in, he was always a step ahead of you.

A smile of a businessman. Likely without a heart. These were this kind.

"Hello, Mr. Stark, nice to have you here." Chris started their conversation, turning towards the man, holding his question card in one hand.

"Mr. Stark was my father. It's Tony. And hi."

Words rolled from those lips smoothly. Stark could definitely lure you into anything he wanted.

Steve felt uncomfortable in front of the TV screen. He didn't dislike anyone. But even though this man in that cushioned red leather chair was radiating charm, he couldn't surpass one part of his mind screaming 'narcissist, egoist, cocky bastard' at Stark. And even that part of his mind seemed to be true.

Tony... No. This can only be a coincidence. His Tony was a nice guy. Heartbroken and shattered and bitter, but a good man. This Tony wasn't.

"So, Tony, then." Chris smiled. "I'd have a very difficult task introducing you in a few words, in case someone actually didn't know you –"

"Which is quite rare."

"That's right, pretty rare nowadays. But you have a very witty way of introducing yourself. So if you could describe yourself in four words –"

"You've been waiting for the chance to make me say _genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist_, haven't you?"

Those four words and that cocky smirk...

"Yes, actually." Chris chuckled, and tried to suppress his childish glee and discomfort all the same time, that Stark always interrupted him, staggering his position at having the reins in his hands. "I would like to get to the main point immediately – "

"Aww, Chris, come on! You're no fun at all."

"– as everybody knows, this show is about to get to know who helped people like you – "

"There's no such like me." Stark muttered under his breath, but still loud enough for the mics to pick his words.

"- to success." Chris obviously fought to finish his sentence and sent a disapproving frown at Stark, who only flashed him a sharp smile in return. "Especially that you became the most successful man in the past 3 years. Becoming CEO of Stark Industries at the age of 21,after the sudden death of Mr. Stane, getting many prizes I wouldn't dare to list – "

"To tell you the truth, I don't mind keeping a record of them either. They are so useless anyway. Just showcase, nothing damn meaningful."

While Chris frowned and wiped his hands in the fabric of his trousers as his irritation and discomfort was getting at him, the urge had risen in Steve again to turn off the show. However, somehow these nonchalant yet so cutting remarks kept him on this channel. A feeling stirred in his whole existence – that this guy – who just turned out to be no more than 25! – may not only be an egoist who only minds polishing his image and looking down the whole world that's not his almighty self. There was something behind his words that held a sharp, blunt truth, he just couldn't grab them, couldn't take a peek under their disguise.

"Would you mind sharing your thoughts about this?"

"To scandalize and ruin everyone's opinion about me?" Stark faked his best innocent-look that obviously added to Chris' discomfort.

"No, I didn't mean to-"

"Don't worry, honey, there's nothing to ruin." now Stark had that smirk on his lips – of course, he was playing with the presenter. Poor guy. And the audience just loved it. It looked like, they loved these sudden changes and snarky remarks in the conversation. Or more likely: all in all, they loved Stark, no matter what a dick he was. "Anyway these prizes are so useless. Just a reason for people to gather, throw a flashy party, giving you one hell of a time preparing for a speech and to restrict yourself from making faces and throwing insults, and to assure everyone that you're working on a better future – because it's important to know that we have a future, right? – then you have to throw another party to cheer and celebrate – sometimes I don't even know what, and not that I would need any more money, right? So really. I just keep on wondering why they still bother giving me anything at all. Maybe after this they won't..."

"Probably because of your great and difficult decision for closing up the arm-division and of the other breakthroughs your company made on other fields, like healthcare and defence-systems."

Stark snorted in disgust.

"If the world were working all fucking right – I would be outlaw, by the way – such things should not be praised and be the natural decisions to be made."

"I can't deny any of this."

"Of course, 'cause I'm damn straight right." Stark agreed with a sneer but then all of a sudden his expression perked up into a cheeky grin. "Just as always."

"So it wasn't a difficult decision at all to change like the whole profile of your father's company?"

"You always have to come back to the serious business, don't you? And anyway, it is my company. I can change whatever I want. The old man is pretty much dead if I remember correctly, so please don't make it sound like I just sabotage his life's perfect work! "

"I didn't want to imply such thing." Chris couldn't handle Stark's pout. Really what was up with this guy? He actually bent Chris around his finger, he couldn't even come up with a witty remark, even though he was good with such things himself on his normal behalf. "But what brought you to that decision? Things had been going fantastic, as I recall."

"Definitely. But there are always things you have to change. They get terribly boring very fast, and I don't take boring well. I don't do boring. And turning on the TV and being asked questions about how I sleep when I'm producing weapons and killing people on a daily basis got very soon annoying and dull. I'm sleeping well, by the way, if anyone's still interested. When I sleep at all. Blue eyes are keeping me occupied."

"And who were the people who inspired you to take that path? I mean, you reached such peaks most of us don't even dream about. There must be people helping you on your road. For whom you are grateful to be there or to have them in your way. Like your parents, they were well-known good people, or Mr. Stane, your teachers who might have pushed you in the right direction..."

For a mere second there was a dark shadow crossing Stark's features followed by the hint of a smirk, which Steve only picked up because he was watching all this man's stirs – looking for something. Something he couldn't put his finger on just yet, but he knew it was there – something somewhere.

"Oh yeah. I should definitely be grateful for my father for providing me such a dysfunctional family and making my childhood feel like hell and then leaving me when I would need some kind of the slightest support, with nothing else but the legacy of a billion-dollar company, being the biggest weapon-producer of the States and the nickname of Merchant of Death. Which is actually cool to have such a bloody nickname, just saying.

"And my godfather who acted as if he cared for me, and vetoed all my peaceful designs only accepting those of the mass-killing stuff, making me quit university before my last year and nearly forcing me into suicide, and then trying to murder me a few times before I could take over the company. Really heart-warming memories of my people and inspiring things. I had the best role-models to follow, don't you agree?" Tony flashed a mincing smirk first to the slightly shocked Chris and then to the camera so that everyone could see.

From behind those sunglasses loathing radiated out, mixed up with mirth and gloating adding up to an unreadable and strange mixture.

"... but aren't there people who inspired you? For whom you actually _really _are grateful?" Chris was a little bit lost and his question cards didn't help him out either. Tony Stark was an unpredictable man. And it was just rubbed in his face. Again.

"Aren't they great enough?" Tony presented an innocent look, but it was only as innocent as the cat who knew he got the canary and now was just waiting for the cream to be presented on the table. "Giving you the perfect foundation of emotional stability and the chance to be faced with the cruel reality of a broke where it doesn't even count how brilliant you might be? It can be the most inspiring, trust me."

"No, no, this is not what I actually meant. I was thinking about for example Pepper Potts. You seem to be very close. And you sure have other friends..." Chris was getting desperate now to keep the conversation on the track he had planned that he finally managed to ask the main question. He couldn't handle such overwhelming amount of sarcasm.

Because that's it what it was, right?

Tony let out an amused chuckle.

"What should I be grateful for? For Pepper beating all martyrs and saints to the end with her long-suffering looks and taking the lead of my company out of my hand? Or for screaming at me all the time to get myself together and dragging me away from my workshop, because I'm supposed to be an average human being and need sleep and food, and taking up with my shit for years now? Definitely nothing to be thankful for.

"Or Rhodey, who made my last year at university a piece of hell because I couldn't go out with him partying because of his lack of dancing skills, plus beating the crap out of me a few times when I most needed to be left alone to drown in self-pity?

"Or the most honest and naive man with the most mesmerizing blue eyes that still haunt me in my nightmares and all in all every time I close my eyes, who stopped me from blowing up the whole world and jumping off the bridge and get relieved?

"Or anyone who managed to spend more than an hour in my presence, then didn't come to the conclusion immediately that I was a shit-man and missed to flee the city as soon as possible? It's natural that people can't resist my charm.

"So I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about."

Stark was met with silence. Everyone was staring at him bewildered and shocked. You could hear a fly had there been one. He got what his theatrical self was seeking – his audience was taken aback by his speech. He raised a questioning eyebrow as if he didn't understand what had been so surprising.

"Why should I be thankful for these people? What for? Why should anyone? For always being there when you need someone to grab your wrist when you'd feel eager to cut it open? Or stop your hands when you're reaching for the fourth bottle in one night? Or smiling at you when you feel like shit? Or just beating some sense into you at those moments, and drag you out of your frigging dark hole of misery and yell to man up when no one would give a fuck for you? What are these things? They haven't done anything big, or great. They didn't win millions of dollars – while killing hundreds of innocents and making thousands orphan by blood as a collateral damage. It doesn't count, right? They didn't throw great flashy parties to meet other dumbasses in dresses and tuxes which cost so much they could feed an African village for a year from their prices. They didn't get to the scandal columns, they didn't sleep around like whores. They were just good. And who cares for good nowadays? It's natural, isn't it? Everyone is so fucking perfect and flawless it just makes us so frigging bad at it."

Chris and - Steve would bet all his tuition fee that everyone in front of the screens were staring at Stark jaws slack and eyes wide open in shock.

Because just what. the. fucking. hell. was. that?

...

* * *

TBC

* * *

I liked very much writing this part, and it includes my own opinion quite a lot (of course), and it's probably my most favourite part of the whole fanfic I'm planning to write... and please forgive my mistakes, I might have not caught snarky irritating Tony as much as I wanted :/

Please review, and share what you think!


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: **still don't own a thing...

* * *

**Sketches**

**~2~**

~*A naive man*~

...

"Well, sounds like an opinion I have here." Stark mused in the heavy silence that had fallen for a few seconds.

"Yes, yes you do, but where'd we be if the great Tony Stark didn't have an opinion like this? So – outrageous, if I may."

"I definitely like your words, Chris." Stark beamed at the man, and the stressed atmosphere was gone in the blink of an eye.

"Lucky me, you have a thing for extravagancy. However, there is still one more thing I want to ask you. You've mentioned a – how did you put it? – a naive man with mesmerizing blue eyes."

"Yes"

The surprising thing was, that all of a sudden, Stark's body language, and even his voice changed – even though it was just in that single syllable word, Steve swore he could hear it drop to a velvety deep tone that rippled softly like cool water. His over-confident posture closed up, he became more guarded, and interwove his fingers in his lap.

And there was no gainsaying it, Steve locked his eyes on the screen, his eyes so intense as if he could get his will through to the man on screen to take off those damn glasses, so that he could see – he could try to read his eyes.

"Who is he? We haven't heard of anything about such mystery-man. Of course you've always been enigmatic, despite appearing weekly in the tabloids, but I'm sure this story would find its way to the papers."

"I have no doubt about it." A small lazy shadow quirked on the edge of his lips. And even the taunt was off his voice this time. "I wonder if he even remembers me."

"Is there someone who doesn't remember you?"

"Well, I wasn't really someone worth to spare precious memory-space for."

"Tony, you really can't leave us on such a cliff-hanger now!"

"I'm pretty sure, I can. Though we seem close to the end of the show and since I don't really wanna come back – no offense, Chris – but 'm no good regular guest and have a lot of things to invent, and surely Pepper scheduled even my sleeping hours so –

"Well, I have a thing for blue eyes – obviously, for beautiful ones – since mines are plain boring – only as boring as anything with me goes boring. Obviously."

"How did you meet with this mystery-man of yours, Tony?" Chris intervened, finally taking advantage of the situation that he could act as the presenter and guide Tony's ramblings in the right and hopefully informative direction.

Tony rubbed his chin thoughtful and for the very first time he seemed to be at a bit of a loss of what to say. It was hard to deduce, but maybe he was considering which words to use. And that made everyone even more interested. It meant that this topic, this man was special for the great Tony I-don't-give-a-fuck-for-anyone-but-myself Stark.

"I was working at an absolutely dull, grey high school as a roustabout, utility man, whatever you call the broke genius kid everyone hates but nevertheless is smarter than the teachers so he is only allowed to work there – anyway! I was about to sabotage the set of the lights and sound of the theatre hall – I had my reasons, don't look at me like that! – and then this kid stumbled in, and jeez, he nearly jumped out of his skin when he realized I was there! I've never seen cuter. Or a brighter blush when I kindly told him that the way he spoke he wouldn't even made the heroine of the play he wanted to get into."

"A play?"

"Yeah. Some kind of stupid musical. Just the usual idiot High School musical shit, I don't know."

"And what happened then?"

"Well, as a gentleman I am I offered my humble services to get him in shape." Chris' eyebrows rose into disbelieving heights. "No, seriously, I was very nice. You try and be rude to those big blue eyes and I'd pay you a million. But I warn you, you succeed and I'd have to kill you. Or much better, everyone else would. That would be like kicking the most adorable puppy ever. And we all know we don't like such big bad people."

"Shame, for a second I considered making a fortune with you. But let me get it straight: you helped this guy – _sing_?"

"Yupp."

"I didn't know you can!"

"I didn't either. But actually, I'm a master at faking what I'm not. If I'm convincing enough who cares if I can or cannot?"

"And what happed after your crash-course? Did your friend get his role?"

"Good question. Probably not. We met about three times, he was sick all the time, and I was getting at him more often than not. Plus my sabotage went amazing. So no sappy play for the year – checked."

"And you might have ruined the career of a young star. I may be having him as my next guest, if not for your evil deeds."

"Ohyeah. I'm sooo evil." A mischievous grin spread his face and Steve wouldn't be so surprised had it broken that cheeky face in two. "I just insured my place as your most special guest for the decade."

"So humble."

"You're talking to me, honey, I'm the humblest."

"What happened then?"

"Then?"

"Come on, Tony! You can't presume I'll accept that it was all your mysterious story!"

"Now you say something..."

And Stark took off his glasses. Probably just out of habit to add some dramatic emphasis to his words, or maybe just to give his hands something to paddle with, who knew. As if on cue the camera zoomed on his face and Steve could finally gaze into his eyes. Big, chocolate brown framed with long lashes with a distant, thoughtful look in those eyes.

Something deep and sad and strangely amused.

"Well imagine the following- You made your count with your life, because you're actually sitting in jail. Just 'cause you might have broken the nose of the favourite asshole of town. No money, no connections, all in all nothing I'd have today. And then the boy-scout of the school drops in and says you're free, he paid your fine. And from one 'what the fuck is happening' moment you fall to the next, when at 'home' – what a disgusting word – on the wrenches of your once apartment, contemplating how to put together a gun from all the shit around, and don't even giving a fuck if you go back to jail for murder, because what's ahead of you now, really? Your hero from before just grabs your hand and announces that you're gonna live with him and his mom from now on. You know I barely ever get speechless, but I was fucking out of words.

"Sorry, man, I gave you one hell of a lot to beep out, but really! On top of all, my hero from definitely-not-even -this-universe, was that scrawny kid from a year ago!"

"And is it so surprising that such nice people might cross roads with you sometime?"

"Hell, no!"Stark exclaimed all of a sudden and wriggled in his place, leaning on the armrest, nearly dropping his expensive sunglasses, pulling one leg underneath himself up on the couch, just like to get closer to Chris, as if he could get his point through easier. "Or not at all. I actually haven't met many good people either way, but God, he'd changed so much! _I_ looked scrawny next to him! He grew like half foot over me, and was all tall and muscular and handsome, anything you ever wanted to be. A perfect man, seriously! And they are not supposed to be so perfect! They should flow with the other bastards, get into the football team, or whatever shit normal people do at high school, and be one of those assholes breaking down that miserable excuse of a flat I'd had, but NO! He took me home like a kicked and soaked puppy, and let me live in the closet!"

"Sorry, Tony, I don't want to sound – sceptical, and all, but I'm not perfectly aware of your living standards at that time –"

"Really damn small."

"By Tony Stark standards, it doesn't sound that –"

Stark groaned in frustration, and got into wide gesticulation, annoyed that Chris was making fun of him when he finally got to the serious business.

"Fuck, man, let me tell you, my closet now is bigger than their flat." he scoffed, and pouted like a sulking child – even though as strange as it was, it put more emphasis on his words.

"Well... – wow... So you were like Harry Potter?"

"I was the ideal dream of a Harry Potter. Because they were just so nice! Like everyone wanted to kick me into next year the way I acted! Damn, I wanted to kick my own ass the hardest at that time. And he just treated me like a – like a person. I was all the time trying to get behind his back. Like, w_here the fuck are your wings, man? _You just can't be real!"

"That sounds great! Now the only question is: why don't we see him around? You apparently left for some reason."

"Had to."

"I don't really understand. Because, you see, it's obvious that you are the great genius prodigy Tony Stark, but that sounded like your own little odd paradise." Tony nodded in confirmation. "So pray tell, _why_ did you leave?"

"Because the world is still full of stupid bastards, myself included."

"Do I have any chance to pull any more details out of you?"

"Not a chance." And there was a weaker but still re-approaching version of the Stark-smirk.

"Shame, just when it started to get very exciting. Okay, one last question: don't you want to meet your angel man again?"

"Chris, as a presenter, you should listen more." Stark scolded in mock seriousness. "First, as a reminder, I don't care much for the so labelled 'nice' people. Second: he surely doesn't even remember me, and all the papers can tell you what an asshole I am, so why would anyone want to refresh any relationship with 'the-greatest-asshole-of-their-teen-years'?"

"You are Tony Stark."

"And my world thinking you know people well has just crashed down on me." The drama queen. "The point is he probably thinks I've jumped off that bridge. For real. Plus no. He is the most naive man I've ever known, but there are things you don't want to come back knocking on your door. Especially if they are dead, right?"

The ending of the show, the dimming of lights, the closing phrases, nonsenses and the cheering of the audience passed by Steve in a haze. The next thing he actually realized was that he had been sitting in the dark staring at some teleshop advertisement in the break, and his mother switched on the lights as she arrived home.

"Hello darling."

"Hi Mom." Steve greeted her back, and he just hoped his mother was too tired to actually recognise how out of character he sounded.

"Is anything good on?" She asked as she entered the living room.

"Errmm... No, not really. Sorry Mom, gotta go – drawing – you know..." Steve was rambling. Of course he was! He couldn't even handle the crazy wobble of thoughts, voices, pictures chasing each other in his mind, how could he put together an actually acceptable reasoning?

"Of course, Steve." God bless the understanding and best of bests of a mother he had. "I'll call for dinner." She pecked him on the cheek, and smiled kindly up at her son, as he stumbled to his room in a daze, barely missing walking face-first in the closed door.

_Tony Stark. Tony Stark. Tony Stark..._

The name was going round and round in an endless blur in his mind.

That voice, the stance, the way he held himself as soon as he got excited and wanted others – others he knew were dumber than him to understand, to fully understand what he was saying, with all its aspects. Like the beauty of his tech, Steve could never grasp. Like the worlds only his mastermind could wander over and engulf in its full brightness.

The gleam in those big expressive eyes. The excitement. That reluctant, disbelieving joy – distrusting his own senses, wondering if such good things were really happening to him. That deep sadness. And that even deeper, darkly burning hatred and loathing and disgust.

He knew them! He knew them all!

And he thought them to be dead with an amazing young man he stumbled into by mere accident.

Now he inherited that manic glint in his own blue eyes. Influenced by the one and only Tony Stark.

His Tony Stark.

* * *

A/N: thanks for everyone following my story so far! And I'm already sorry, that I have no idea when I'm going to update soon. I became terribly slow at writing and drawing both and I really want to illustrate somehow when Steve finally starts his sketching ;)

So please bear with me, and don't forget that faves/follows/and especially REVIEWS make my day and inspires me to continue :))


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: **Before the chapter I'd like to say a very huge THANK YOU! to all of you faving and following this story, and especially for my lovely reviewers! *hugs* 'cause originally I wanted to upload just now and then when I have time (not really often, unfortunately), because I thought noone would be interested, but you guys are too awesome!

So here, have a new chapter as a reward for your kindness! And also because I can't let a rabbit die (So **Violent Solution**, please, let the bunny live!)

So again thanks a lot **Morgy Worgy** and **People Are So Petty And Tiny**! You're awesome! You made me want to continue, I hope I won't let you down!

* * *

**Sketches**

**~3~**

~*A man armed with a screwdriver Pt.1*~

It was really really annoying.

Steve's room looked like as if a hurricane had stormed over the whole place and then glanced back, remembering that it didn't make a big enough mess. Well, that particular hurricane was called Steve Rogers, who had always been a very neat and organized person, but now...

The time needed drastic measures to be taken, and that resulted in this chaos. Papers scattered all over the floor, bed, furniture, some of them still lazily floating to the ground. Clothes were torn and lying in disorganized heaps next to his school stuff and books. And in the middle of everything was Steve collapsed into his old, squeeking, insecure office chair, hair messy, cheeks tainted pink, lungs heaving, eyes ablaze with a desperate disappointed look, lips pursed into a pout.

He was so close to a minor breakdown now it was killing him!

He had dug through everything. It looked so hopeless, now that he gave it a second thought, yet he just couldn't explain the _why_... Now – now that it became so damn important!

He was so sure he'd find something.

A picture, a sketch, some rubbish that seemed no more useful than a paper weight, anything!

Steve felt pathetic.

He tried to shove away the scattered papers and pencils off his sketchpad, and turned the paper to an empty sheet. He didn't even trouble to sit properly to the desk. He held the pencil half-heartedly in his hand and –

-there were no lines to leave a mark on the white surface.

It was grinning back at him, sneering at his apathy.

For once, Steve knew what – no, scratch that – who he wanted to draw. So why was he so useless now? Why couldn't he draw a line? Just the first one! He knew very well that always the first, the tiniest line in the hardest to put down, but it had never been so annoying and –

And he had never felt so miserable about it.

Steve collapsed on top of the sketchpad – he could feel the deep crease between his eyebrows on his forearm, and the warm fume of his long suffering sigh. He closed his eyes and there was the clear picture of Anthony Stark – that dauntingly beautiful picture of him, of that fleeting second when he was the same person Steve knew from 6 years ago. Guarded, worried what others were thinking about him, and defending himself by trying very hard not to show that, pretending all too convincing that he didn't care, the world could collapse on itself, he wouldn't give a damn. And yet, he was so hungry for acceptance. No, not just that. This word felt empty even in his own mind – but he couldn't call it any other way.

The businessman mended with his fading memory of the young man torn between stubbornness driven by the icy heat of hatred and sadness over his lost future.

Steve could never put these pieces together – but that had never stopped him from marvelling over depths of those dark eyes surrounded by purplish circles of insomnia. And sketching them on a daily basis in his mind. Wondering what colours he'd use to give back the same emotions swirling in the chocolate orbs, entwined with the sun or the artificial light of their poorly lit home.

However, the moment he tore his eyes off of Tony, the image was gone.

And he was left with empty hands.

Just like now. Only that now he could see the whole picture – the picture, he had the feeling that he had been all along waiting for...

And when he opened his eyes, the moment his sight settled on the paper – he drew blank.

So that left him with his face resting against the cool surface of the tabletop as he slid even lower...

"...Sorry, I'm not really a carpenter, I honestly has always hated working with wood – sticks and break and barb – that shit hurts under your nail, I tell you, especially since I introduced myself to metal and wielding, and – aw, shit, you probably wouldn't even know what I was about to start rambling about! – so whatever, it's no masterpiece and I'm suspicious it's gonna fall apart if you move it, but yeah,..."

His desk!

How could he forget?! Steve really felt the urge to bang his head hard into the surface, but his childish glee overthrew this stupidity. He felt like when he was five and found his Easter egg after half an hour of galloping back and fro the gang and the house.

.

It took Tony about two weeks (twelve days and six hours if you asked Tony – and Steve had no idea, how on earth could he remember such details, when he had never been good with math) to get accustomed to living with other people. And all in all living in something like a _home,_ as he put it once, around 2:30 a.m. in the safety of Steve's dark room. That word always sounded strange on his tongue. It wasn't the same as he uttered it on the show, not with disdain, but like a child when he's learning new words, and he is not sure if he's using them for the right thing.

At first Steve laughed at him openly when Tony startled and stared in shock when he was all of a sudden faced with either him or his mother. Tony would always jump and drop whatever his hands were fiddling with and he sometimes even flee back to his closet and they didn't see sight of him for the next few hours.

Then Tony's habits took a whole turn and he could be seen around more often. At the oddest places at the oddest times.

The first suspicious thing should have been that things went missing. And then they reappeared. All of a sudden. Nothing real big, just small gadgets, that you wouldn't really miss, but when you'd just happen to need them, well, that was pretty much annoying.

And then one day Steve was just like now, just 6 years younger, and suffering with his homework rather than his artblocks, he realised that there was no other way, he needed a calculator. He was hunched over his math homework, and he was staring at the bunch of pis and radicals and all the other odd things. Only after going through his schoolbag did he realize that he had lent his calculator to Bucky two days ago and the sticky fingers the other was, didn't give it back, before disappearing somewhere to the other side of the globe.

A little voice in his head, that suspiciously sounded like that idiot, whispered to just leave the homework, when will he ever need such things as how to solve quadratic equations?

Obviously never, but Steve was well-mannered and hopelessly conscientious. So he didn't throw his notebook through the window, just threw the pencil at the thing (and after that he had to duck quickly to dodge the malicious thing).

"Umm, hey, Tony" Steve knocked vaguely on the teen's door. "Can I come in?" it felt odd to be knocking on the closet door and asking for permission to enter, but hey, his mother raised him with manners!

No answer.

"I just want to borrow your calculator if that's ok...?"

Still no answer. Maybe Tony went to bed early.

He quickly dismissed the thought. It's true that he hadn't seen much of Tony for the past two weeks, on the other hand, whenever he did, Tony sported dark circles under his eyes that were obviously showing off sleeping problems.

So Steve tried the door – then frowned. It was locked. It shouldn't have been locked!

No, not because he envied some privacy from Tony, or either because he wanted to check on him whenever he wanted, because he didn't trust him. He invited the guy to his home for a reason, thank you. Well, the obvious problem was here that the door had no lock.

"Tony, are you in there?" He tried again, calling out and knocking louder. "Tony?"

"...Yeah?" Steve barely caught the voice calling. The clattering, however, was more of a tell-tale sound of Tony's whereabouts. "...Come on, you shitty thing..."

"Where are you?"

"Kitchen..."

What was he doing in the kitchen?

Whatever he was expecting, Steve wasn't prepared for the sight greeting him. Tony was sitting on the counter, with several parts of household appliances scattered around him, with the remnants of Steve's mother's alarm-clock in his lap. Tony had the frown of troubled concentration, his lips pursed into a stubborn pout, one hand running constantly through his messy hair, while the other were playing with a screwdriver lying on the counter next to his thigh and his fingers brushed suspiciously close to the edge of the big knife. Especially when that hand jerked to grab the screwdriver then drop it back, because the idea that struck Tony had probably not been the best.

"Heya, Steve!"

That carelessness put Steve on edge for some reason, and his eyes darted back to the dangerous sharp object again and again even as he was talking to Tony.

"What can I do for ya?"

"Umm, I just wanted to borrow your calculator." Steve scratched the back of his neck awkwardly, his eyes zipping from Tony's big browns to his fiddling hand.

"My calculator..." Tony repeated evenly, and there was a quick mischievous glint in his eyes that went by the second Steve could get suspicious about it.

"Yeah, you know, for maths homework." Surely Tony knew what a calculator was used for.

"Well, of course I do." Steve's gaze snapped back at Tony's face, lips drawn to a smirk. "Yes, darling, I'm a mind reader." Steve flushed a bright shade of red. "Come on, Steve! It was all written on your face! Or – was the blush for the 'darling'? Because you know, if you like it, I can keep on calling you that. Or Honey... That sounds sweet. Especially if you blush like this. Tomato-Honey. Jeez, Steve, you're sweet! You're not supposed to be sweet!"

"Yes, exactly. I am not" Steve coughed and frowned, trying to gain back his dignity by putting up a hopefully easy-going expression. But he still felt his ears burning. "So, back to the calculator..."

"You could borrow it, if I had any." Tony answered simply without skipping a beat, as if he didn't just embarrass Steve to death.

Steve pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance, and was already going through excuses as of why he had no maths homework, or just tell the truth as it would be the most forward thing –

"But, hey, maybe I could lend you myself!" Tony declared all too cheerful and eager for Steve to stare at him in slight horror and utter shock. "Not like that, dummy! But if you liked... well, yeah, sorry, we've been down this road before and you obviously didn't like it, sooo – what I actually implied there was that I could be your calculator."

Steve opened his mouth to answer, to say something, but no word came out. So realizing, how stupid he might look, he closed his mouth and nodded.

This is how they ended up in Steve's room, and Tony obviously had something against sitting on chairs. Steve generously huddled up on his bed, offering Tony the opportunity to take his squeeking old chair, the more comfortable place, and spread his math stuff on front of himself, while Tony, however, decided that he'd have a better place on Steve's desk. He scattered his gadgets all around, resting his elbows on his knees while he positioned his feet up on Steve's chair, and swirled the screwdriver in his hand. Steve suspected that Tony had already forgotten why he'd come in the first place.

"Tony, is that Mom's alarm clock?"

"Mmhmm."

"And you do realize that she'll be upset if she finds it picked apart, right?"

"Steve, you're hurting me!" Tony pressed the heel of his hand into his chest in a mock-hurt way. "Of course I do. And trust me, when I say, it's gonna be better than brand new after I'm finished with it."

"Well, if you say so..." To be honest, Steve hadn't had much faith in the future of the alarm clock.

"It was being late and crappy, and the sound was also odd, so I took the liberty of repairing it." Tony wiggled in his place, making Steve's desk crack and squee. Tony definitely had problems staying calm and unmoving. "So, back to subject, honey, what are you learning?"

"Quadratic equations." Steve admitted with a sigh, pointedly not blushing by Tony's nick-name-calling habits.

"That's a piece of cake."

"Well, true, but I can't extract the square root of non- square numbers."

"All right, don't pout, boy-scout, come on, shoot!"

"You really are serious...okay..." Steve chewed on the end of his pencil for a while. "Can I ask for not just square roots?"

"... Be my guest." Tony'd apparently busied himself with the disentangled clock.

"62 on the second power?"

And without missing a beat or even taking the tip of the screwdriver out of his mouth Tony answered: "3844"

"Okay...8*4*13?"

"416. And it's 62 +/- 58.55, before you ask. x1's 0.125 and the other's 7.5343."

"You can't be real!"

"Mmhmm" was all he could get from Tony for the next few hours. Well, except for the numbers. And okay, Tony didn't take the trouble to solve all the equations forth without Steve actually dictating the numbers, like hitting them into the calculator, but still. For a few times Steve checked the results on paper, but Tony was accurate each and every time he bothered. After a while he just trusted Tony's crazy brain, and just forgot to mull too much over the fact that Tony was still engrossed in the dismantled clock.

Which, actually, just seemed to lose more and more components.

No, Steve was definitely not worried about how his mother's going to get up in time for her next shift.

.

And still that day Steve's desk collapsed in on itself. Or actually it collapsed under Tony as he finally wanted to hop off the table with a satisfied 'Fuck, yesh!' and that was the final pressure it could take.

And buried Tony alive as a last revenge for causing its death.

Only the alarm clock and the screwdriver remained unscratched in the process, hold out high in Tony's hands, as the most important and precious treasures of the teen...

And strange as it was, from that time on Mrs. Rogers' alarm clock was never late again, and the battery lasted miraculously long.

* * *

**TBC**

**A/N:**I'll explain the whole desk thing from the beginning in the next chapter, sorry! this plot bunny just carried me away and I didn't realize how long this chapter was growing. Sorry – sorry! Please bear with me!

**P.s.** I checked the equation as well in writing more or less, and I have no idea about the American school system, so I just had to pull up anything I remembered giving me some hell back from high school, and I could still say it in English ^^;

**Reviews still keep me going :D you have no idea how much fuel your kindness means!**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Sorry for the occasional mistakes, I was in a hurry to finish so that I could update soon :) **

**Still don't own anything.**

**And You guys are still awesome, and I have this inevitable feeling that I owe you for being so kind reviewers! Keep them coming! You make me very happy and inspired to update!**

* * *

**Sketches**

**~4~**

~*A man armed with a screwdriver pt2*~

"Oh fucking shit! Steve! Steve! I'm sorry – Steve, is the clock all right? One piece? Oh, fuuuc - DAMN! I fucking hit my head! Shit, Steve, why the fucking hell do you keep so much crap on your desk?! –"

Steve hurriedly saved the clock from Tony's hand and did his best to pull the teen out from the rubbish that – sadly – used to be his desk. Just in case, before the string of curses go any longer and louder and the neighbours start giving them strange looks. Thank God, the old lady on the other side of the wall was half deaf, so she wouldn't get so shocked for all the swearing going on. Steve bet she hadn't heard so much in all her lifetime that she could just in one minute. He really needed to wash Tony's mouth one day if his manners don't change.

"It's all right, Tony. Don't worry, I got you..." And with the last words he pulled up Tony and settled him on his feet again.

Tony cursed a little bit more under his breath as he scoffed and turned to assess the damage he'd done, then his eyes rounded comically and a small 'oh, fuck' escaped his lips.

Steve didn't really know what to say. He knew his desk had seen better days and he had to be careful with it and not to overwhelm it with his books and school stuff, and it had never been really good for drawing when he would put more pressure on the surface as he had to lean on the desk – but still, it was a part of his life. And truth be told, they couldn't really afford a new one.

"Steve, Steve, I'm so sorry! Shit, I didn't know! I'm sorry! I'm so careless, sorry, Steve, I didn't mean to-"

"It's all right, Tony." Steve said with a sigh.

Because seriously? Have you ever tried being angry to big brown tear-framed puppy eyes?

"No! I- I'm gonna... Oh, holy crap!" Tony ran both of his hands over and over through his either way messy hair, his eyes had a frantic, maniac gleam to them. "Yeah, that's it. I'm gonna make it up to you. I don't need much, I'm a genius..."

"Tony, I said it's okay. I'll be fine without it." _Somehow..._

But Tony obviously didn't hear any part of that. His eyes started glazing out, looking into the distance, yet, what made them look creepy was that they looked like as if he was reading something really really quickly, or searching for a little piece of information on a thick long text.

"Tony!" He raised his voice a little bit, then grabbed Tony by the arms and turned him so that the frantic teen was facing him, and he could look him in the eyes.

Tony flinched.

Damn, Tony looked so worked up, and panicked; Steve had to eventually shake him, so that his eyes would focus on the blond. Tony seemed fragile in Steve's larger hands, he could feel the wiry muscles shift under his jumper, little scratches on his face and forehead and the circles under his bloodshot eyes made him look sicker especially with his eyes gleaming so strangely.

"Tony, look. It's all right. Accidents happen... And thank you for helping with my homework..."

"Just leave you alone for now, right?" Tony continued on a breathless hoarse tone, that resonated so bad on so many levels inside of Steve.

Steve was so shocked, that yes, actually that was what he didn't know how to put so he wouldn't hurt Tony, that he couldn't answer. Because it sounded just too rough and naked and snide as Tony said it. The way Tony understood it.

The next time he blinked, he only saw his door closing. So gently it barely made any sound.

It reminded him of a poor little 'sorry', of the way he sometimes closed the door of his mom's bedroom when she snapped at him, but he didn't understand what exactly he had done wrong, he only meant good, but in the end he was so so bad, that he tried to act as if he didn't exist at all.

Steve collapsed on his bed and buried his face in his hands, cursing under his breath.

He didn't want to chase Tony away. It was just hard to actually _think _when Tony was around. He was always babbling, always talking, moving, fidgeting, breaking stuff by accident, criticizing – He just couldn't be still for a second! He was like a kid, who needed attention. Who'd do anything stupid, so that you wouldn't neglect him.

And for some reason, Steve was too tired to give much thought about why he couldn't just _not_ listen to him.

That behaviour was only strange because that was so contradictory to the other times Tony would hide away in his closet and wouldn't even stick his nose out for eating.

No, Steve definitely didn't want to analyze Tony! See? Even when he was away, and he could think about how he's going to do all his homework and doodling stuff on his bed alone, his mind was on Tony. Steve could be upset because of his own things, without babysitting the other, thank you very much, so he'd just have his own little exceptional pity-party, and act as if he didn't feel guilty for hurting Tony, when he should really be upset with him.

He didn't see Tony until next evening, when he caught a shadow sneak through the corridor, then heard the door close silently. That shadow must have been Tony. His mother couldn't move that fast, and – well, had it been someone else, it would have been a burglar, and he really didn't want to think that, so Tony was the one sneaking out of their apartment.

That made Steve worried. He knew, Tony was – not creepy, exactly, but very strange. And he tried very hard to shut the part of his mind that tried to predict where Tony was going and what he'd do there.

So he decided he'd better talk to him.

However, the morning found Steve with aching limbs and back, and still with no sight of Tony.

That day was spent in a pretty bad mood – taken the cramps and aching muscles from sleeping in a less than horizontal position.

The next time he actually bumped into Tony. The teen was sitting in the kitchen again with the toaster in little pieces all around him. Steve gaped at himself how he even realized it once had been their toaster.

"Hello, Tony." he greeted carefully.

Why did he feel like so on the edge? It wasn't like Tony was angry at him, or something. Steve was upset, for God's sake! What was with this effect Tony had on him?

"Hi there, Steve" Tony greeted back cheerfully and he smiled up at him and waved with some part of the toaster in his hand.

As if nothing had happened and Steve's desk hadn't still been a heap of sticks in his room. Well...

"Who's on the phone?" Tony asked on his usual – how could Steve call it so soon usual? – chatty light tone.

"Oh, it was Bucky. He got back from I don't know where-"

"Wow, the I-know-everything and I-count-on-every-possibilities Steve Rogers doesn't know where his friend disappears to?" Tony plastered a cheeky grin on his face.

"Well, yes." Steve tried to hide his embarrassment with a cough. He was using this method too often. "So as I was saying he got back."

"That's good news so far, isn't it? Except if you suddenly grew to hate the kid because of the calculator incident, for which I can't really take you for being the quick tempered one..."

"No, Bucky is still my best friend."

_Was he?_

"So, what's the sour face for?"

"It is not!" Steve protested, and subconsciously touched his face, as if he could check his expression this way.

"But it was. When you just put down the phone. Man, that was a sour expression if I've ever seen one."

"You weren't even looking!"

"Oh, honey, you never know I'm watching" and Tony winked at him with that mischievous half-smirk, that made Steve blush every time, even when he didn't get addressed as 'honey'. "So?" The way Tony could wiggle his eyebrows didn't ease Steve's situation a slightest bit!

"He invited me to a party... But I'm not sure if I want to go. I'm not much into partying."

"Steve, babe, let me tell you something" Tony put down the wrench and looked up seriously at Steve's tomato red face. "First, I can't help the nicknames, and I'm not sorry at all. And you'd better get used to it. There are dangerous people out there, who are only waiting for the opportunity to call you 'sweetie' 'sweetheart' 'darling' 'honeybear' 'hot stuff' and I just mentioned the fluffy ones. Oops, not the ones that would encourage you for partying. So as for the second – I sadly have to announce to you, that you entered the age when it's time to go to parties, start drinking a bit, not too much, just to have some fun, Mr. Goody-two-shoes, and meet girls. On top of that, Steve, have you ever looked in the mirror? It's considered a crime keeping yourself locked up here. And I'm speaking on behalf of at least 75% of the society."

"Tony, I don't think there are so many ladies in the society."

"Probably not, but the remaining 25% include the married, engaged and those people who are worried you'd take their girl/guy. Or those you already stated that you're not interested in – Jesus, Steve, wash your face! I'm afraid you'd get aneurysm or something!"

Steve was actually burning, and humiliating or not, he really needed to take Tony's advice. He felt his face going numb from the heat. However, it didn't help much that he could feel Tony's eyes on himself the entire time.

"Definitely, sweet cheeks, you've gotta go to that party." Steve snapped back at him, because – yes, he could hear that wicked smirk. Damn, Steve, why don't you ever learn, that you really don't need to _see_ that? – he scolded himself as the initial effect of cold water melted away and his cheeks flared up again. "It wouldn't be fair to keep such nice view only to myself."

"Do I get away from your bantering if I go?" He asked exasperated and with dread settling uncomfortably in the pit of his stomach as Tony's smirk turned devilish.

"You'll see" And the bastard winked at him again!

No, Steve wasn't cursing, not even in the sanctuary of his own thoughts, but Tony was again getting at his nerves. So he actually had to go in the end. Juts for Tony's sake you know. So that he wouldn't end up punching the irritating midget with the annoying cheeky grin to wipe it off.

One and a half hour later Steve fled the house. Okay, he called it quick retreat from danger zone to safety, but it was actually really quick, and he didn't even hear Tony promising to tell Steve's mom where he was going. Nor had he seen the satisfied smirk on Tony's worn face.

The thing was in the next morning (very early, because it was Saturday, and he didn't have to get back home early) Steve got a once over lecture from his mom about disappearing without leaving a note first (Tony forgot to tell her, obviously, that he was going out). Steve made his best to listen and he really didn't need to pretend to look miserable and sore. His head hurt and he only wanted to get some sleep.

Goddamn Bucky and his persuasive skills!

He dragged himself to his room, entering face-first, and just barely managed to find his bed. Thank goodness he had a small room. He could care less he was only half atop of it.

He didn't care the strange smell and the cool air. He must have left the window open before going. And the smell just didn't register in his brain to be oil, burnt hair or something that's definitely not supposed to be burnt and freshly carved wood behind the thick but already vanishing smell of enamel. And something hard and pointy –a screwdriver – was poking his knee.

Or the fact that his bed was actually already taken.

Steve could share – he had manners and he was generous at heart. But only until he was allowed to sleep.

And Steve had never fallen asleep quicker.

The time he woke up it was noon. He was freezing and his foot bumped into something very solid as he twitched in his dream. Steve sat up groggily with a huge yawn and instinctively stretched out to fetch the glass of water from his desk...

... He wasn't supposed to have a desk...

... And he wasn't supposed to hear another yawn from his side.

He turned his head slowly, minding the headache and he gaped at the most adorable sight he had ever seen. Tony was sitting sort of cross legged on his bed slightly behind him. He was no less awake than Steve was. Clothes rumpled and stained, hair messy, bloodshot eyes half lidded, dark and hazy with sleep. He looked like an adorable puppy, still disoriented and sheepish.

As soon as Tony recognized him, he grinned up at Steve and stretched out his limbs.

"M'ning, Sunshine. How's da party?"

"Fine... Tony,... what is that desk?"

"Whad'ya mean? A desk o'course."

"But it's... huge."

"She's a monster, Stevey" Tony grinned at him again and crawled forward a bit, so that he was near Steve on all fours, so that he could reach the desk as well.

Steve just blinked at him owlishly, not believing his eyes.

The desk looked more massive than his previous one and, it was a bit hard to make out all the details, but looked like a hybrid of a table made of wood and metal. The legs were definitely metal and painted black and a dark shade of cobalt. And Steve could make out some joints on the longer side, like as if you could just fold up the framework.

Steve slowly crawled off the bed to step in front of the furniture and observe it better.

"Well, actually I promised I'd make it up to you, didn't I? You have no idea how much trouble I'd gone through to collect everything. Or just to make schematics that would match and then to rethink everything again when I had to put back the circuits and sticks so that you won't accuse me of breaking everything. And how to put it together and not bother you –"

Steve couldn't see the legs like he could earlier, they were more like chests, but the covers, their doors looked different each. One drawer had glass the others were wood doors, some of them with carvings of ornaments. One showed birds on branches, the other just nonfigurative lines. The doorknobs were the same.

"...Sorry, I'm not really a carpenter, I honestly has always hated working with wood – sticks and break and barb – that shit hurts under your nail, I tell you, especially since I introduced myself to metal and wielding, and – aw, shit, you probably wouldn't even know what I was about to start rambling about! – so whatever, it's no masterpiece and I'm suspicious it's gonna fall apart if you move it, but yeah,..."

The table-top was a bit clear-out, yet not simple. It was raised and had a glass cover. As he inspected a bit more, he could see the glass had its own frame and it could be lifted up, and underneath he spotted LED lamps and a switch on the side.

"Tony – what is it?" He pointed at the glass cover.

"What? Oh that!" Tony leaned forward, planted his forearms on the edge of the table, which swayed a little bit, but didn't collapse this time, and his eyes flared up with excitement and pride. He reached out and got into wide gesticulating motions pointing out things and lifting up the glass to set it to a slight slope. "See, I've seen it somewhere on TV and in workshops. You turn on the light and put the papers on the glass. It's tinted so it wouldn't scorch your eyes, and since it's lifted it's not that bad for your back and wouldn't burn your hand. Man that can hurt! Trust me, I did enough times. Umm, that's more for schematics and for tattoo artists, I guess, but I saw you redoing your stuff a few times and you could just copy the good parts this way, if you want to, not a big deal. Or if it bothers you, just put your tablet on top, you won't see a thing of it. It's cool! A bit of a monster as I've pointed out before, but think of her as Frankenstein's genius creation! Spacious, you have drawers to shove away your stuff, wouldn't be always under your hand when you draw and even has some secret chests. You're gonna love her! Oh, no, not so sure. What do you think, Steve? Truth be told, she's a bit wobbly. So if you're planning to move, maybe she wouldn't survive, but yeah, not a masterpiece – "

"Tony, you made this?"

"Yes, what I've been babbling here all along, sweetheart?"

"For me?"

"For who else? Steve seriously. If you don't like it, you can – well, I don't know. Pick it apart and sell the parts or something. Or just throw away. No big deal..."

"How can you say that? It's awesome, Tony!"

The grin settled back to Tony's face on hearing that. A satisfied, proud expression. Like a little boy getting his first acknowledgement from his father. An expression that made Tony shine.

The next time Steve emerged from the warmth of his memory, on the paper in front of him there was a doodle of Tony smiling bright and happy. Honestly, with genuine pride, knowing he had made something good. He had made it up to Steve. He made good. Steve also added the inevitable screwdriver to the picture.

He felt his art-block retreating as he turned to the next empty page of his sketchbook.

* * *

**TBC - I hope you liked it so far ;)**

**A/n: Hey, dear readers who are still with me! First of all thank you, for sticking along! And second I'm still planning on going on with the story. **My only problem is that I'm not sure how much of these rememebering parts are still coming. Because truth be told, I'm running out of ideas, but they are still a very important part of the story. So my question is: **do you want to read about those things? **Of Steve remembering how his life had been with Tony? (Not a really long time, but nothing's ever simple with Tony, right?) So is there anything particular you'd like to see?

And about the recent updates: I'm not sure if I can keep to it. I just started watching Supernatural and the Winchesters and that ugly thing called school are cosuming most of my time. But hey, you've been great at making me wanna continue... Sooo...

**Thanks for reading along!** Hugs and kisses to all of you! :)))


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Sorry guys for the late update, I tried my best to keep it sort of regular, but I got ill and my school schedule is becoming a bit crowded for the next week. So sorry about it! And It's a bit difficult to come up with new ideas out of nearly nowhere when there are such things all over the internet and my computer like Supernatural and new episodes of Doctor Who ^^;**

**Thanks for the reviews, guys! *hugs***

**I'm still open for ideas ;) And I hope you'll enjoy this chapter!**

* * *

**Sketches**

**~5~**

~*A man haunted and left alone*~

Steve was used to the sight of Tony being dead on his feet. He got to know the guy with those dark circles under his eyes, a frown and a dark shadow lingering in the depths of his bloodshot eyes which were the most common signs of sleeping problems.

Then even living with them, he occasionally caught sight of Tony against the wall of the narrow short corridor. One trembling arm holding his weight leaning on a cupboard and just staring into the blue. Not seeing a thing, eyes hazy and foggy, eyelids opening up only demanded by pure will and stubbornness. But as soon as Steve called out his name, or the noise of a key in the lock could be heard he jerked out of this state and switched back to his way-out, guarded mode.

* * *

Tony never allowed anyone to see him vulnerable.

One morning Steve found Tony surprisingly early in the kitchen. It's true, that Tony had his own odd hours, but they usually were of very late – both at night and in the morning. To put it more plainly: Tony was as rare of a sight before noon as a blue dahlia in the middle of winter. (And _yes_, Steve was giving his observations as long years of experience after about two weeks in living with the other.)

But Tony was still there and Steve wasn't dreaming. Tony was nursing a mug in his hands, some poisonously dark brew in it. Steve suspected it to be coffee, but it was probably too cold already to be worth drinking. It didn't look beckoning at all.

"Good morning, Tony" Steve greeted him, carefully not too loud so that he wouldn't disturb his mother but still fitting as much enthusiasm into it as possible.

From the dark look Tony sent him as his own 'greeting' told him bright as this particularly beautiful day what Tony's opinion was about Steve being so lively at that awful hour.

"M'nin" was all Tony muttered turning his unwinking glance back at his mug.

"You had breakfast?" Steve asked trying to start a conversation rummaging through the cupboard looking for a mug of his own.

He only got a growl as a response.

That was something that piqued his interest. Or worries. Whatever. He had the right to be worried about his ex-schoolmate-roommate-flatmate-friend?- whoever Tony was. First, because Tony always took every opportunity to try and ruin Steve's good moods or reason with him about how bad the time was for a run or anything healthy. He didn't get why it was so important for Steve to be able to go for a morning run. Especially that now he was able to do it and didn't have to stop after every fifth step or so because he couldn't force a gulp of air down his windpipes due to his asthma.

And second, because Tony looked like someone out of a zombie-apocalypse horror movie Bucky made him watch once.

"Wow, Tony, you look terrible"

"Now I just don't need a mirror anymore" Tony noted dryly, his voice hoarse from not using it for a long time. Then with a wide motion Tony knocked back his all too black and all too cold coffee. As someone takes a terrible-tasting medicine. Or poison. Pick your choice.

Tony made a face, so he was rather into the medicin-metaphor, because he already looked better. Or at least more human. His eyes were clearer at least and focusing in on Steve.

"And just for the record, you look as dashing as always" And just for good measure tipped his head back and tried to lick out all the last drops of – okay, let's call it coffee out of the mug. And Steve wasn't staring at the taut skin of his throat or the rise and fall of his Adam's apple.

"Are you having difficulties with sleeping?" Steve averted the comment, deliberately not blushing this time.

"Am I getting out of shape? How does such comment not make you blush?"

"Because, you know if you do- "

"I have a few ideas that could help, don't worry, just all of them would require some pocket money" Tony cracked a suggestive and very dirty toothy smirk.

"- Just drink some warm milk before you go to bed, and it'll help you sleep-" Steve wasn't letting Tony push him down that road.

Tony's eyes were too big and challenging for not reading and Steve was worried for all the fatigue and shadows he glimpsed in them.

"Steve, I think I passed five to need such methods if I can't sleep" Tony snorted and levelled Steve with a funny look. His stance read 'Hey, mom, do you realize that I'm not a baby anymore? Pretty damn please?'

"I mean to help-"

"You're helping enough"

"-because you obviously haven't slept for a good while"

"And what?" Tony snorted again, this time his smirk sharp and cutting and there was malice glimmering in his darkening eyes. "Are you going to put me to bed and stand guard in front of my door until I snore? Checking the wardrobe if there are monsters to eat me in my nightmares? Steve, I'm about to wonder if you realized that I've been living on my own just perfectly fine, and I'm a big boy enough to handle the shadows without a night torch."

"Do you want to talk about it?" Steve offered as honest and nice as ever.

His reaction rendered Tony absolutely speechless. Had he had anything in his mouth he would spit it out or would try his best not to choke on it instead of his own tongue and surprise.

"What the fuck about?"

"About why you cannot sleep. Your nightmares…"

Tony cracked a laugh at that, and it was Steve's turn to stare at him in confusion.

"And let's hug and cry some tears and then kiss it all better, shall we?"

This actually got Steve blushing and averting his gaze. He just wanted to be nice darn it, and now Tony was laughing at him. Despite his changed appearance, Steve couldn't brush off the feeling of elementary school when all his classmates were laughing at how small and sickly thin he was.

"Come on, baby, don't pout, you're breaking my non-existent heart" Tony grinned at him with his guarded, measuredly warm smile that always took Steve off his legs no matter how much he tried to stay upset with the brunet. "See, so much better. But hey, aren't you late from your awfully healthy morning exercise? You should be in school in like, what? thirty?"

"I don't have school today" Steve eyed Tony suspiciously over his own mug of tea.

"How come?"

"It's Saturday?"

Tony's eyes rounded comically. His probably first absolutely and out-of-guard emotion of the day.

"I'd swear it was just Wednesday. Thursday tops"

That was saying something about his (non-)sleeping habits, but before Steve could dig deeper again, Tony quickly started talking again.

"So you have more time on your hands, hm? It's a pretty nice morning, I have to give you that. And I heard on the radio it's gonna be a whole nice weather-"

"Our radio broke a month ago" Steve deadpanned.

Tony just waved it off "I have to do something with my free time" Right. Tony. "So as I was saying, it's a whole-day-nice-weather, and maybe you should bring your sketchpad with. To do something artistic, or whatever you're doing. You haven't done anything nice for a while, so I s'pose you could use some time for that. I'll tell your mom."

Steve didn't even question how Tony knew he was drawing. But God knew what Tony was doing during his odd hours... He never showed him anything, and truth be told, he missed doodling, but for some or other reason he hadn't touched his sketchpad ever since Tony moved in.

So he left a note for his mother – because Tony telling his mom where he went didn't work the last time either, and left for his morning run with his art stuff in a back-pack. Gloomy thoughts about Tony's nightmares and problems shoved securely to the back of his mind. Steve wanted to enjoy the bright day as much as he could today.

* * *

Tony never wanted to talk about his feelings, what'd been going on inside of him, whether in his heart or mind. And Steve knew better than to think that it wasn't much, because Tony didn't seem to be the type of guy who just liked day-dreaming and not having a single thought running around his brain. He was usually jittery, knee jerking now and then, drumming, tapping away, sketching sharp edges and straight lines that made no sense to Steve, scribbling endless equations where Steve was sketching dogs, trees or Tony's hands. Those showed a man with a lot of things on his brilliant mind.

But now…

Why would he be thinking so much of Tony? Despite the time they lately spent together, he barely knew anything about him. Like why was he living alone? Why wasn't he in school? (How old was he exactly?) Or why wasn't he working? Steve wasn't one into mechanics and stuff, but Tony seemed brilliant, and he thought companies, or just workshops would be competing for him. And if that was the case, why wasn't Tony keen on going on? What made him stuck at this stage of his life?

See? This is what it meant having Tony on your mind all the time, even at 2.30 a.m.

Steve stretched and winced as he heard the bones in his back pop back in place. There was nothing helping his test for tomorrow. He could also go to bed now...

He froze mid stance as he was about to stand up.

The wall wasn't too thick in their apartment, and the night was exceptionally quiet –

Except for the distressed moans and a muffled scream coming from the other side of the wall from him.

Steve shot to his feet and out his room to tear up the door of the closet the next second. He rushed into the small room, barely able to contain a trestle bed and a small desk and foot stool and all the rubbish Tony'd collected.

"Tony! Tony, wake up!" We called out firm and low as he tumbled to the bedside to take a hold of the whimpering mess of the boy.

Tony jerked awake, shooting up to a sitting position, hands reaching out for the support he longed for from the owner of the gentle voice. Steve nearly fell to the edge of the bed, pulling Tony awkwardly close to his chest, but all of a sudden Tony started fighting back. His breathing was quick and laboured, his pulse running a hundred miles, then the next time Steve called out for him he broke down into whimpering sobs.

Steve could never...

"Tony – Tony, it's okay. It's just a dream" How stupid, you can't control what's going to be all right and what's not. "It was just a nightmare."

Tony shook his head against his chest, desperately trying to muffle his sobs, fisting his hands in Steve's shirt so tight the fabric was about to strangle him around the neck.

But Tony couldn't stand a fight in his current state and he shattered and burst into hysteric tears.

"It's all right, Tony. I'm here. You're here with me. All right." Steve tried to soothe him desperately trying to hold his cool and not panic on what he should do.

"It's horrible- "Tony sobbed into his chest. "There was- There was this car... an accident. They died, Steve! they lay there – broken – and bloody – they-"

"Who, Tony?" Steve forced forth his most responsible side, to be strong for Tony and not break down with him.

"They – my parents. They di-ed... In that car. And there's blood everywhere. And their face... Looking at me – so em-pty. they were dead!... And there was- that voice. Whispering. Then howling. To get out. To run... Run! it said. Run... And I ran. And ran, and it was so dark, and there was a door too, but far away and they were chasing me anditgotdarkeranddarkerand... they are going to get me- Steve! Theyaregoingtogetmetheyarego ingtogetme! they are..."

"No! No one is going to get you." Steve stated, and he just realized how thick and hoarse his own voice was. "I won't let them, Tony. You are safe here."

.

In the end Steve scooped up Tony in his arms, hugging him to his chest as he shook and mumbled, but he couldn't make out a word. Tony clung to him desperately as Steve stroked soothing up and down along his spine trying his best to remember what his mother had done to him when he was having a nightmare.

It was only different, that he couldn't recall any night when he reacted to a nightmare as badly as Tony did.

So apparently Tony had nightmares that didn't allow him a night's rest. But Steve hadn't heard anything like tonight before. Which would have made him wonder why this was a special occasion, if he hadn't been so occupied rocking Tony in his lap. And the teen looked even more fragile like this.

Like a small child. Lost, and without his parents or safety or a secure point to turn to.

This parallel seemed painfully true.

They both barely slept at all. Every time Steve thought Tony settled and tried to tuck him back into his bed, so that he could leave and get some rest of his own Tony let out small miserable whines, his lips wobbled and curled up into a ball clutching at Steve's lingering hand as if his life depended on it.

It was all the same whenever Steve nodded off. They couldn't actually squeeze together in Tony's small bed, so Steve was all crouched on the edge, Tony trashing and trembling the whole night whenever he couldn't feel Steve's presence or even when he fell back to deeper sleep.

Steve knew he could leave Tony there. And Tony wouldn't hold it against him. He probably wouldn't even remember Steve the next morning or whatever time he gets up. And he hada test to write tomorrow.

But Steve would never do that. And not just because he had a too-kind heart. It was about Tony. Tony being vulnerable and unable to defend himself from the torment of his own mind. And Steve couldn't leave him like this.

It didn't matter that he won't be thanked later. Nor that he could never bring up the topic, because Tony awake was too guarded to allow such weakness. He wanted to help him. Even if he didn't know what he wanted to help exactly.

Maybe he was a bit selfish too. In the far corner of his brain he cherished this thought to see Tony's eyes smile. But he found this little secret wish of his justified. It was okay. Since it would always remain a wish…

* * *

So Tony's parents died.

Steve could never imagine how that might feel. But when hementioned the topic of his parents, Tony's expression tightened, but he didn't seem otherwise affected. He didn't like them at all. That much he straightforward stated and refused to listen to any further reasoning of Steve that tried to prod him for more information or to convince him to try and take a look at the problem of his parents from a different view point. They hadn't had such great relationship. That was as far as Tony'd ever go.

But still... that nightmare proved that Tony was missing them no matter how much he was trying to surpass such feelings. What surpass? Deny their existence back to the time he was born!

His mother was his family for Steve. He couldn't imagine a life where they weren't so close. He couldn't imagine how Tony's life must have been.

And thank goodness and everything in Heavens Steve's mother was the best. She was supportive even when Steve couldn't really reason why he wanted to take Tony who didn't even have a family name under her roof. A total stranger. But she agreed. And here they were.

He just hoped his mom will forgive him for his failed test. Steve would be surprised if he passed the test. He square on nodded off in the middle and when he glanced down at his paper as the teacher was about to collect them he couldn't make out a word of his handwriting...

* * *

**TBC**

**I hope you liked it at least a little bit... :)**


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: ** Hey! Sorry that it took me so long to update! I wanted to do it sooner before I went to the IronMan3 premiere, because I was worried it'd mess up my plot, but school caught up on me, I'm so sorry!

**But!** **I'd like to dedicate this chapter to a very kind anonymus reviewer, who left her name, so I hope you don't mind, Rebecca, who got me finishing this piece. **Don't worry, darling, one more chapter tops and they're going to meet up again ;) (and I'm Miss, btw. Don't make me feel old ;))

* * *

**Sketches**

**~Chapter 6~**

~*A man with few colours*~

Steve liked colours but Tony on the other hand barely wore any. He had a grey hoodie jumper, that's inside was green and a few grey and black T-shirts and maybe two pairs of worn jeans and an even worse sneaker. He had no idea how'd Tony survive a winter with those clothes. Maybe he had some warmer ones, just wanted to spare them for times more in need? It was hard to tell. This or Tony was just simply careless. Which also seemed quite likely.

Steve huffed out a sigh. Here he was worrying again.

But it was a nice day never the less, and he was sitting out on a park bench with the playground stretched out in front of him. There were children laughing and squealing in delight, parents chatting away or just watching their kids with all different amounts of concern and pride. Steve had his ever-present sketch-pad on his knees, a cup of dirty water balanced on his right and he desperately tried to find the best place for his watercolours so that he could easily reach them but they still wouldn't hinder him in his work.

He wasn't that great of a talent. He just enjoyed drawing, sketching, and like now – painting. They had a heaven gift of amazing weather, and the colours were all too beautiful to miss. He didn't have classes this morning because the teacher was sick and they didn't send anyone in, and since they were doing surprisingly fine with money he decided he could use the time for himself. His mother sent him off with a soft smile as she went to get a few hours of sleep, and Tony was also nowhere to be seen to give him one hell with his cutting remarks about _"which bastard put 'good' and 'morning' together?"_

So he tried his best to get the angle of the jungle gym and the dangling feet of a little boy on the top of it. He still quickly painted a blob of purple onto the sledge as a reminder to himself not to miss the little girl who was out there with her mother. And while the children on the picture were a bit out of human shape, Steve felt content with his work. He didn't even realize he had a small curl of a smile and that he started humming some random melody he had heard on the radio this morning.

"You know this song is from the rock of ages, right?"

Steve barely had time to snatch his water cup out of the way of Tony's feet as the teen stepped onto the bench and seated himself on the backrest.

"I was wondering, man, how you even know what a radio is. Because, seriously, I wouldn't be much surprised if I found a phonograph stuck under your bed somewhere"

"Good morning to you too, Tony. Isn't it nice to see you out here?"

"My God, did you just sass back at me?" Tony pressed the heel of his hand to his heart and rounded his eyes in shock. "Goodness, your mom's gonna kick me out soon if I have such effect on you"

"Well, you can't blame me for you make a very good vampire. Or zombie."

"It's not the same"

"For me it is"

"Yeah, with your horror movie education being definitely poor, so it's a great thing you at least know what they are"

"Everybody knows what they are"

They went on bantering a little longer, and it really was saying something about their relationship that around the end Tony started complaining again about the lack of Steve's blushes. On the other end Steve couldn't hide his smug expression – it took him long hours of meditation and training of his will to be able to control the heat creeping up his face Every. Single. Time. Tony made a sexual content joke or hinted about anything similar. Which was quite a lot – since we are talking about Tony.

Yet Steve's victorious (smug) grin resulted in a pout from Tony. The brunet huffed and crossed his arms in front of his chest (Tony didn't pout and absolutely didn't look like a 5-year-old who didn't get a candy in the shop) which gave Steve a few precious minutes to secure his water cup and paints and add a few more blots on his picture.

As time passed Tony absentmindedly started kicking at the duffel bag he carried with himself today. Steve didn't say a word, since it's no really disturbing movement and he can go on with his painting.

Only until at one time Tony managed to finally nudge the bag off the bench. It fell to the ground with a loud _thud_ and the strange clanking noise registered in the periphery of Steve's mind after he got over his heart attack. Great, he got an ugly brownish-orangy-red spot in the middle of the sky.

Steve glared up at Tony who didn't even try to look a tiny bit apologetic. Actually he tried hard to cling to the backrest so that he wouldn't fall over the back and break his neck.

"Now is there any particular reason why you enjoy ruining my life so much?"

He didn't even bother to ask for the content of the bag.

"Because you're too happy with it?" Tony shrugged, but averted his gaze from Steve and the edges of his smile froze slightly. It meant a lie.

"Okay, never mind. What's up? Decided to get a tan finally?"

"Nope. Just glanced you all alone on this ugly morning and thought you might appreciate my fabulous company. Unless…"

The way Tony perked up and his eyes glimmered mischievously Steve felt his feet itching for a quick run.

"Do I even want to know…?"

"Come on, Steve!"

"What?"

"It's a pretty morning, no school and all, and you are all lonely on this bench in the park."

"I'm painting, and I'm also not alone anymore"

"Whatever, that's not my point. What is – that – aw, yiss! There's my blush!" And if possible, Steve blushed even darker. It was stupid how happy just such a small thing like a blush could make Tony happy. He wouldn't put it past Tony to start clapping his hands in a gleeful manner upon that. "So, my point is, that _any_ normal high-school guy would take out their girl on a date in such awfully nice weather"

"And?"

Oh no! They can't start talking about girls, right? They can't! Steve had enough when his mother tried to give him The Talk – which would have been awkward enough, even if he hadn't covered the topic with Bucky already and his mother prodded him for what they had talked about, because they might have missed out something important.

And there came the awkward silence.

Steve felt his cheeks heating up even more, his ears going numb and the blush crawling down his neck as Tony stared at him with owlishly rounded eyes, mouth forming a small disbelieving _oh_. Steve was half-expecting Tony to laugh his ass off the bench, but instead the silence just stretched on until Tony finally covered his mild-shock with a polite cough.

"Seriously?" There went all politeness, because in that tone there was all the indignation of a forty-year-old who just found out his best friend had never had a sex so far. "I don't ask for a boyfriend, because we've already covered that you're not rolling that way – but to be honest, I was suspicious of that idiot jerk of friend of yours – Bucky, or what's his name – the way you're so grumpy when he goes around the world or being an ass to you, but then you obviously stated you're into girls, and I can read your blushes, yes, sweetheart" How did he breath was a mystery to Steve. " - then I really was suspecting that you actually have a very good talent at hiding things – people – people are not objects to be called things, yes mum, I did my homework, and back to the girlfriend subject, I thought you just didn't want to talk about her, or that I was some problem so that you wouldn't bring her up to introduce her to your mom, and so I tried to hint that I can disappear but you didn't really noticed – and it looks like you wouldn't even be able to hide anything, or keep anything so important as a secret and-"

"Tony, please, breathe!"

There was a huge breath like a suffocating engulfs life back in his aching lungs.

"How the fuck you don't have a girlfriend, Steve?"

"Well, I just – I just simply don't" Steve stuttered, because how are you supposed to answer that question? Yes, he was nearing twenty, he was the oldest in his class, in the school too probably, and lot of his classmates had had a girlfriend already, but what was so wrong with him being alone?

It sounded a bit strange if he put it that way and Tony's expression told the same.

"Okay, so I rephrase, why it's supposed to be strange – if you still don't get it" Tony leaned on his knees and his face was now disturbingly close to Steve's, his eyes gleaming mischievously. It took Steve most of his will-power not to lean away from his friend. (Yes, he settled to call Tony his friend finally)

"And rephrase again. How many girls have asked you out so far?"

Steve couldn't decide even if his life had depended on it why he blushed again – because of the guess behind it, or because of the fact that Tony seemed so neutral about this topic. As if he had been asked out several times – nope. Steve didn't want to go there, because seriously? He didn't want to know the details.

"Not many" he admitted and duck his head to try and hide his embarrassment.

"Baby, don't be so shy" Tony cooed and bumped him in the shoulder. "It's all the way nature goes. So tell me, how many _exactly_?"

"Tony, please"

"Just a number, Steve. I'm not gonna prob you for details" and with that Tony drew a cross on his heart. Though Steve suspected the fingers of his other hand were definitely crossed.

"You certainly will"

"You're hurting me, darling. You can trust me" that grin looked a bit empty, or was he only imagining things? Probably just his brain frizzling.

"Five, I guess" Steve admitted on a low voice and he hid his burning face in his hands.

"Wow, you're still not actually beating me there – but hey! Why haven't you gone out with any of them? There must be someone nice"

"I don't want to _go out_ with someone I don't like."

"Then why don't you go out with someone you like?"

At that Steve sent him a stern and nasty look.

"Hey, I'm just asking. It can't be that – what hard?"

The glare was Steve's most effective one, and it obviously worked on Tony too, as he pulled back a little and waved it off all defensive.

"It _is_ hard, just for you to know. You don't seem to be so much around girls either. You're rarely out even. Just saying" Steve snapped back, because he didn't like where they were going and he had his own defence mechanisms thanks. Which didn't include pouting. Guys didn't pout. Only Tony. But Tony was an exception in everything.

"They aren't my type anymore" Tony shrugged "But back to you, buttercup, who do you fancy? Because you surely do! And why don't you ask her out?"

"It's not your business, Tony!"

"So you really do! And surely is. I like gossips, and you're dying to tell someone, and I just happen to be here, so why don't share?"

"Wouldn't you make the meanest girl at school"

"I know I have the lashes, and the ass but I'm too handsome to be your girl, sorry cupcake" Tony fluttered his eyelashes at him, and cracked a toothy grin, that was sharp around the edges and drew wrinkles in the corner of his eyes.

"I hate you"

"It won't save you, Stevie" Tony nudged him with his knee, and wasn't it endearing that they could have so much fun even if Tony was still guarding the show of his emotions and Steve tried desperately to avoid getting aneurysm?

"So come on! Who is the scary lady, and what stops you from asking her out?"

Steve stayed silent for a minute weighing his chances. Tony wouldn't leave him be until he 1) tell him, and the reason why he hadn't asked her out yet, and Tony obviously didn't take the answer well of 'just because', because he might want to set them up – he really didn't put it past Tony; or 2) until Steve snapped at him and sent him away with something very nasty which both of them would regret. But probably mostly Steve. Because a hurt Tony is the worst Tony. Not that he had so much experience, but that would mean that Tony's smiles would turn all too guarded and sharp all the time. And his eyes would look hollow and cold. Painfully far away from this chocolate brown, back to a pale, dark greyish shade. And Steve just wanted to see them warm up to an actual colour.

It was definitely and without doubt only the artist speaking from him!

Damn, Steve was embarrassed. He knew, he actually recalled some memories of Tony with random girls on his arm. And hell, Tony probably didn't even remember him, because he was small and scrawny at that time and usually sported several bruises, and Tony was handsome and had charisma, and the girls never cared what might come out of the thing they had, because it definitely wasn't a relationship with the speed Tony changed them, and also because it was a different Tony. A Tony who didn't give a crap about anything as far as he could piss off others. And Steve remembered the smirk on Tony's face as he stole the girlfriend of the captain of the football team in a lunch-break.

But nobody should know that he was keeping record of these memories. And also about that he nearly died out of sheer embarrassment when he tumbled into the cocky handsome bastard when he was looking for the drama class.

Cool. Now his face was burning up again.

Steve sighed in defeat.

"It's Peggy Carter from my class" he admitted on a low rumble, and hoped Tony wasn't paying attention so that he can accuse him of not listening and they would be over the overly embarrassing topic of who Steve had or had not a crush on.

And for a bare second Steve was hopeful.

"…That scary British chick who's like from the military?"

Steve stared up at Tony. Because who thought Tony knew his classmates so well?

"I'm not really into brunettes, don't worry, soldier. Though I admit, she is at least special. She seems to have brains"

"She is smart" Steve stated firmly

"All right. So what? You're afraid of her dad?"

"You won't leave this, will you?" Steve sighed again and rubbed at his forehead to try and get the upper hand of the turmoil of his feelings. Because Tony wasn't helping at all being so neutral and nonchalant about this topic despite the eager interest he showed in making Steve uncomfortable. "She has a military background, yes, her father is a Vietnam veteran, and I surely wouldn't be his favourite, or of her brothers'…"

"But…"

"But I just don't know how to ask someone out, I don't know how to date, okay?" Steve blurted out finally.

And it didn't help anything. At the thoughtful look on Tony's face he nearly snapped _'Why do you want to set me up with someone so much, when I don't want it?'_ But he might have been more worried about the answer than eager to hear it.

"It's time to start everything"

"It's not like that! Because I wonder if you've noticed but girls expect you to know things, and I'd just make a moron of myself if I stumble. I haven't had as much attention as you, just saying!"

Tony levelled him with a strange look, and that chill cooled his nerves a little bit.

"If it's all about the kissing…"

"It's not just all about _that_, Tony"

"Yes, yes, such sappy thing like emotion, I know" Tony made a face – was he really like seventeen? "But still, you could practice. You know, practice makes perfect"

"And please tell how would I even practice if I can't talk to girls? I wouldn't want to kiss someone just like that" Steve was getting desperate and hoped that a little bit of exaggeration won't hurt. Much.

"Well, you have me"

Tony said it so matter of factly that Steve nearly choked on his own tongue. His face was beat red by now and his eyes huge as saucers and definitely desperate and pleading for this awkward conversation to end.

"Yes, I know you're not rolling that way, I remember what I said some minutes ago, but if you don't think of me as 'guys' – as in general, but just in 'Tony' like the crazy asshole who's making a nuke in the closet, that should be better, right?" Tony had no idea how wrong he was this time. "I promise I'll shave for you, not to make it very disturbing. All I aim to please"

"This is stupid"

"Hey, just think about it" and Tony grinned at him again, and finally the awkward edge of the conversation was wearing off. "I won't take back the offer, don't worry. I don't have anything against gorgeous blonds kissing me. If I can contribute to your happiness a little bit – because trust me, I was told to be an amazing kisser, and I honestly don't think you can be awkward at it with such lips and that little cute blush of yours, so just let me know if you change your mind"

* * *

On their way back home they had to cross the bridge, because Steve chose the furthest park in town. He still didn't know what Tony was doing around there. But now he watched worriedly as Tony was balancing on the rail of the bridge, the two wings of his hoodie hung at his sides and underneath he wore a painfully red T-shirt that was nearly glowing in bright sunlight.

Steve couldn't really wrap his mind around why, but he felt a cold fist clench his heart upon the sight.

And it wasn't gone until they had passed the bridge and the steel-blue river far behind.

* * *

**TBC**

**A/N: **Time to say I'm sorry again. This chapter didn't turn out the way I wanted and I feel awkward. I haven't felt so disappointed with this fic so far :( Thanks to everyone sticking along and reading and commenting!

**And again, huge thanks and cookies for you, Rebecca!**

I can't guarantee a regular update, because the semester is comin to an end inevitably, so I'll have school stuff, but I'll try!

Just one more thing (I know noone cares after such a long chapter, but bear with me) I already mentioned that I would like to illustrate this fic. But I just can't come up with actual settings so far, but it'd be cool to see a cover for this story. So, if you have any idea, I'm open to them ;)


	7. Chapter 7

**Sketches**

**~ 7~**

~*Picking up Memories Part1*~

There was a scribble, quite detailed, if you count that Steve didn't have much clear memories about that particular time. He actually had been very happy that no one was paying much attention to him and let him catch his breath after he couldn't pick a time for his damned life when to stand down.

At that time he was all too happy to let all the attention pass over to Tony.

On the page there was Tony with messy hair, a black eye and a forming bruise on the same cheek, and cocky toothy shit-eating grin breaking his already split lips.

* * *

"…overcompensating"

Adams' head jerked to the back as if he had been slapped. Hard. His eyes flared and he huffed like the wounded bull smelling fear. The only thing that the bulky captain of the football team reacted like this to anyone who dared to challenge his – well, anything.

And he was jumpy like hell especially since that morning hence the rumour had spread that his girlfriend dumped him. For the very cocky bastard standing a few feet away. With his back to the deadly menace of six feet of muscle and meat and minimal aggression filter.

"What did you just say?" Adams bellowed and took a threatening step towards the brunet. Forgetting about poor Steve on the ground.

"It's not nice eavesdropping, you know, big guy"

The brunet only spared a glance over his shoulder and he fucking winked at him, then with a shit-eating grin turned back to the crowd that surely only had just gathered around them – smelling trouble and blood, like vultures, and the boy dropped back into his casual conversation mode as if he had been entertaining a circle of friends.

"I tell you, it is a sign of absolute incompetence, beating up all those poor bastards who don't really stand a chance protecting themselves. Though isn't it more pathetic-"

"HEY, JERK, I'M TALKING TO YOU!"

"And I hear you, so turn down the volume, will you? As I was saying, no wonder Taylor picked me –"

"HOW DARE YOU-"Adams grabbed the brunet by the shoulder, spun him around and raising his fist to break his nose no doubt, but the boy slipped out of his grip like a fish.

"It's very rude interrupting someone in the middle of his rant"

He only took a step away to get some – mockingly small - distance between Adams and himself, sparing a cautious glance to his back to check if no member of the football team was behind him – Steve already liked the guy, even if he didn't favour the arrogant air that radiated from him. He had balls, no one could argue that.

Okay, maybe he was plain idiot, but that was a matter of details.

"And just to finish, what you so sweetly interrupted" words were flowing from that mouth in a pearly line "It's quite pathetic way to compensate, if you can't even finish off a scrawny kid"

"I'm gonna rip out your tongue, you bastard if you don't shut up!"

"Just be careful with that" There was an even dirtier grin and a malicious glint in those dark eyes "Don't be embarrassed when you realize my tongue is bigger than your dick" and he stick out his tongue, that actually wasn't that long.

The uproar of laughter rocked the hallway. And it only reached higher volume as Adams missed the first blow, as the brunet ducked to avoid the swing of the thick arm. But that was as far as his luck reached. The next moment he was tackled to the ground, all air knocked out of his lungs with a pained huff. Adams towered over him, keeping the struggling teen firm to the ground with his knees, and used the handsome face as a punch-bag.

When a teacher finally emerged from his long-lasting and don't-ever-dare-to-interrupt-it's-sacred coffee break, with the caretaker in his tow the brunet was still on the floor, his face covered in bruises.

From the irritated look the teacher gave the teens it was obvious that Adams will get away with blaming everything on the other. It was quite how things went around here. No one made a move to help the other up. The crowd stepped back, but were still snickering and whispering among themselves.

Just how the crowd worked – Steve thought bitterly, and was disgusted with himself, that he couldn't get himself to go up to the guy who actually saved him a trip to the nurse and a tons of worried looks from his mother. He was no better. When he finally made up his mind, the other already climbed to his feet and spit the blood into the trashcan nearby.

"Move your sorry ass, Tony" Steve heard the old caretaker grumble. "You have work to do"

"Goin'" the brunet – Tony – muttered back, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, not even bothering to touch the tender skin around his eye (he must have been familiar with such bruises, and considering that snarky biting mouth? Steve wouldn't be too surprised).

"Just gimme back my fucking screwdriver, old man!"

But despite his easy tone, his eyes were dark. And not just because of the bruise. That glint of adrenaline was gone. They looked – dark.

Steve hated the knot it left in his stomach. Damn his artist eye's addiction to eyes… it was about to hurt him.

* * *

Those were Steve's actual first memories of Tony.

He was sure Tony didn't remember him from that day, he was quite dizzy himself. But from that time on, he occasionally glimpsed Tony with different girls on his arm. Always a different one. And his eyes never gleamed with any pride or satisfaction. The edge of his lips quirked up into a sneer nearly all the times, but that was it.

These quick glances of sights resulted in a few doodles of Tony with those girls. But while Tony was quite detailed in all of them – Steve liked fiddling with Tony's messy hair or the folds of his jeans and shirts – the girls' were never. Their clothes were some fun to draw for a while, but they never had a face. He would bet his head Tony didn't remember them either so why should he?

* * *

Steve rummaged through all the papers on his desk in panic. Then he spread the search process to the whole room again.

He tore it out. He remembered clearly that he had torn it out!

He didn't even know where the idea had come from.

It was innocent. Like pure and childish and like your first ever crush. A small tender kiss. Steve remembered a dizzy sense of pride and a goofy smile stretching his face. The sketch was really good, he had to give it to himself with a small pat on the shoulder, but he couldn't have left it in his sketchbook! Or goodness help him lying somewhere around his room!

Just a small kiss. Chaste. Happy. Delighted. Without any future sense of sorrow, bitterness or cynicism.

And his present mind altered the faces, the features – slightly readjusting them so that he could make a picture of the present from a six-year-old blurry dream. He wasn't small and skinny anymore, and Tony had his goatee and those small wrinkles around his eyes when he smiled as he pulled back after giving sketch-Steve a chaste kiss on the cheek, the tip of his nose, who cared? He had to find that scribble!

* * *

There was something disturbing about Tony in his red shirt and bridges. Or high places. Steve had this strange – not really instinct, but a feeling coming from very deep, somewhere unknown, that Steve would gladly overlook, and just live without it, because the feelings coming from that dark ugly place claimed it their goal of existence to make Steve's life miserable.

Because there was this thing of Tony's painfully vivid red shirt and that dark, greyish pale shade of his eyes. And high places. Where he could dangle his feet in thin air. Where Steve's stomach would crunch. Because it would be so easy to fall…

And then there were those very rare, but even more horrific moments when Tony was still. Not moving, not tinkering, not tapping, not babbling. He couldn't even catch that glimpse in his eyes that meant he was trying to select one from the crazy race of his thoughts.

"Isn't it frightening?" Steve asked once when Tony settled on the edge of the bridge and had been staring into the wild greyness of the river below for long moments.

"Hmm?" Tony barely tilted his head in question. As if not wanting to break the spell of height.

"It's so high. And just the thought that if you fall…"

"You could fly"

"But then you'd fall"

"That's the whole point"

"I mean, you'll have to land"

There was no snarky remark of 'You can't really land in a river'. And it was also disturbing on a level, Steve couldn't explain.

"But you wouldn't really feel it. I mean, you'd break your neck, and just die, and it won't hurt landing, you won't be conscious for it long enough"

Steve didn't find it in himself to argue with that.

There was a small shadow in the corner of Tony's lips. Steve wouldn't dare to call it the edge of a smile. Not of a joyful or a humorous one. But it wasn't even cold for a sneer or a smirk. And it wasn't the shadow of thinning lips into a hard line either.

It was something of Tony from six years back. And Steve always remembered that small shadow when he thought about flying. It burned his mind even if he wasn't so fascinated with the topic of flying.

"Why does it attract you so much?" he asked all of a sudden. And neither of them actually realized the silence that embraced them. Despite the cars driving over the bridge. But no one cared for two teens at the railing.

"I can't really explain, my Captain" Tony took up the habit of calling Steve captain for some reason. "At least not sounding cheesy as fuck. And that sucks." He sounded more like Tony, but only in wording. The voice was still low, mesmerized. "_And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you_"

"Pardon?" Steve stared at him in confusion. That seemed like some quote, but what was its relevance…

"Nietzsche" Tony finally tore his eyes from the flow of cold metallic grey and blue, and quirked a crooked smile at Steve, the future signs of small wrinkles in the corner of his eyes showing. "Homework, big guy, look it up. The guy, though egotistic as hell with all the other philosophers, said some let's-call-it-smart-because-I'm-in-a-good-mood-tod ay things"

* * *

Steve actually looked up this quote later. But only after a crater-sized hole was torn in his life. He never would have thought, a small man, like Tony could leave such a huge gaping hole in his wake. So one day, when Steve was grateful for every little memory that connected him to Tony, thanks for the Internet he did his homework. Even if he hadn't had anyone to report to.

There was one more sentence before the one Tony quoted. Tony skipped it. Whether he didn't want to share or didn't find it interesting enough "to spare precious memory-space for", Steve didn't know.

But it added up to Steve's unease. Had he decided to start studying psychology, he'd have already overanalyzed why Tony uttered that quote in the first place.

But he wasn't.

_"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."_

And there was nothing he could wash away the gut-wrenching feeling that this revelation left in him.

* * *

**TBC**

* * *

**A/N:** Sorry, I seem to be unable to keep to my promises, but this chapter was about to get too long, so I had to pick it apart into two again. But don't worry, I already have half of the next done. I just have to study for tomorrow's exam. Cross your fingers for me, and let's hope I can present you a next chapter soon :)

I love this Nietzsche quote. You can use your analyst skills to guess why, and why I wanted to insert it ineo this fic so much ;)


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N:** _Meeting finally! Hurray~!_

* * *

**Sketches**

**~Chapter 8~**

~*Picking up memories Part2*~

After he checked every single page of the sketchbook Steve fell back into his chair with a sigh. He had no idea where the drawing went.

Since when do things disappear into thin air? It was more or less regular and normal when Tony had been around. Because come on, the guy kept on stealing things from all around town. Steve once spotted him with a shopping cart filled up with junk and wrenches and electric-somethings. Lamp-corpses, metal chunks of any kind, burnt-out toasters, radios, even a broken screen TV.

And the household appliances in the Rogers residence started working properly all of a sudden. Well not too suspiciously, but still. If Steve really gave it a thought he could have guessed Tony's handiwork behind all that.

Steve barely noticed that his pencil was at work again.

It drew a hand – long calloused fingers and dirty nails a stub of cigarette among them. There were also small cuts and burnt marks. Some of them old and only a pale dip of the skin, while some of them were new and one cut in particular was angry red just below the thumb in the sensitive skin on his palm between thumb and forefinger.

* * *

"Mind if I join you?"

"Your place, I can't really forbid you"

"It's a free state" Steve tried to smile as he settled beside Tony on the narrow rooftop.

"Sure it is for you too" Tony's snort was as disdainful as of a war veteran's after Vietnam.

Steve could feel the warmth of Tony's thigh next to his as the other shifted slightly. Not away from him. Not even really changing his position either. Yet Tony still managed to put some distance between them.

"I didn't know you were smoking"

He had never felt it on Tony. The past few days every time he got back and passed Steve, his hair and jumper smelled either of the smog of the city, or that delightful undescribable freshness that's left after rain mixed with something cooled warmth that was Tony.

Never the disgusting stink of smoke.

"Only when I can steal some. This is my last"

"Steal? Tony…!"

"Like they couldn't go without one or two! Those bastards smoke a pack in a break, I'm saving their pathetic excuse of lungs they still have!"

"But you shouldn't –"

"I need it, okay?! Not everybody can be as perfect as you!"

"Tony –"

"Whatever" Tony cut him short again and huffed out the smoke through his nose irritated. Then he took another long drag which burnt the end of the cancer stick to his nails. This time Tony exhaled long and smooth while he stubbed the remaining of his cigarette on the roof. "It's illegal, I know. My whole existence is illegal and pointless… So, what can I do for you, mon Capitan?"

* * *

Tony with kitten ears, curled up into a ball, only with one eye cracked open. Lazy and content with the warmth.

* * *

"You like cats?"

"More like cats than dogs. Dogs are stupid"

"Cats are nasty"

"Clever. They are clever, Steve. And they aren't servile. They do what they want"

"Until they need food. Cats exploit their owners and bend them around their fingers"

"Paws"

"Details. But still, that definitely makes them evil"

"Nope. That makes them cool. And don't tell me that kitten in the back alley wasn't cute"

"I can't believe you used the word 'cute'! You'd have thrown yourself after it in a second"

"Nah, not that much"

"Yes you did! Maybe it was your lost little brother"

"Huh, what? Steve, have you hit your head somewhere?"

"Well, he just looked like you, when I took you in"

"So I'm like a pet to you? My dignity is wounded"

"Well, in some ways… I gave you roof above your head and I feed you, and you appear and disappear, like cats do"

"Just wait until I bring a dead mouse to your doorstep!"

* * *

Steve embarrassed and with burning cheeks left the next page in the notebook and turned to another empty one.

Yet, the lean muscles, the lazy, smug expression and the challenging smirk of the stretching brunet with cat-ears on the windowsill basking in the sun never missed an opportunity to turn up in his mind and embarrass Steve to death.

Damn, how did he have so much blood for all this blushing?

* * *

Tony sometimes was very fine with being close to Steve. Touching, clapping his shoulder, leaning over him to look into whatever he was reading. Steve could recall Tony's warm breath fanning the side of his neck, the short hair on his nape standing on end from the closeness. He tried his best not to pay him much mind when Tony measured up the math or physics homework he was suffering with. The small shiver that ran along his back when Tony clicked his tongue and patted him on the shoulder when he was doing good or the warmth of his chest pressed to Steve's shoulder when he pointed out on a low rumbling voice where was a mistake in his calculations; or stealing the pencil from his hand while brushing warm fingers and correcting his graph.

And then sometimes Tony wanted to be as far away from Steve as possible, yet be in his presence.

Just knowing he wasn't alone.

Steve found it endearing when he caught Tony curled up in the small gap between wall and bookshelf in the corner of the small living room with a self made led-lamp hanging from one shelf and emitting some misty light to whatever Tony was reading.

"What are you doing, Tony?"

Steve couldn't and didn't really want to fight the soft smile that spread on his face. Tony reminded him of himself and his mom building pillow forts when he was smaller (and also happened to be more or less healthy).

"Reading. Plotting"

Definitely no older than eight. When you want to change the world with the innocent brightness of a child's mind.

"Can I ask for permission to be enlightened about the master-plot?"

Tony looked up at him with a purple pencil dangling from his mouth, several sheets of newspapers and random, who-knows-where-they-had-come-from papers scattered around him in a huge mess and a paper-back novel in his lap. All the papers had side notes and equations and random scribbles of rectangles and squares and diagrams.

"You know Orwell?"

Steve shook his head.

"Animal farm? 1984?" Tony lifted the book so that Steve could see the cover.

"I've heard of it, but didn't know we had a copy"

"Well, you don't really, I just picked it up somewhere, but I can leave it here for you, it's really good – mortifying sometimes, but with enough cynicism or sarcasm it's really great, but since you don't have any, maybe I shouldn't but yeah… There are these two-way telescreens, via which the government – the only ruling party, you know like in socialism, can control you. You are under 24/7 surveillance. There are some in every room, even in your own flat, and they both see you and hear you, like those tinted glasses, mirrors, which you think to be a mirror, but in real they are windows, and they are like webcams, you can't switch off…"

And Tony went on and on about how he wants to create one of these telescreens, one that can't be switched off, and then how he'd find a way to switch them off, so that people can plot against the government. Because, obviously, only an evil government would do such thing and it'd be your duty to plot against it. Then after about ten minutes of rambling, from which Steve didn't really understand much, Tony reached the conclusion that it would be even cooler if he couldn't only switch the camera off, but fool it, so that the government wouldn't know that they were doing something nasty and so on and so on…

Steve liked listening to these ramblings, even if he didn't always make much sense to him. Tony was showing his brightness to him. And he would gladly stay leaning on the backrest of the couch even long after his knees and back and shoulders started aching from the uncomfortable position.

* * *

"Tony, what's happened?"

"Nothing"

"That's… Is that my bag?"

"You can have it, I don't care"

Tony swung the duffel bag at Steve. It was nearly empty, yet probably containing everything Tony possessed.

"You can sell the rest. I have some metal garbage, maybe they give something for that shit. Or just dump it in the trash"

"What are you doing, Tony?"

"What does it look like?" Tony's tone was sharp and angry as he pushed his way past Steve and out into the corridor. Steve'd never heard this tone before.

"Where are you going?"

"It's none of your business!"

"Tony, what's wrong? Please-"

"Tony! Tony! Tony! Just shut up already!"

"I want to know what's wrong with you" Steve snapped irritated.

"Nothing's wrong. Everything is as they should be. Don't think you know a thing! I'm leaving dumbass, that is. I'm fed up with you"

"What have I done?! Come on, Tony, answer me properly!"

"I don't have to report any fucking thing to you!"

Steve reached out to stop Tony before he slipped out of his sight, to turn him around and take a better look at the off-betrayed expression that flashed for a second, but Tony jerked away even further as Steve's fingertips brushed his arm. Tony stumbled to the railing, panting as if he had been electrified and in pain from the contact. Steve leapt at the opportunity to step closer, slipping behind Tony's lowered guard and grab his shoulder.

Because physical contact helped in arguments, right?

But it only flared Tony's anger even more.

"DON'T DARE TO TOUCH ME!"

Tony's agile fingers dipped hard into Steve's forearm, finding with deathly exactitude that particular place between bone and muscle that sheltered the artery in his arm and hurt so much when pressed down hard.

"Leave me alone! I don't care about you. You're useless. I don't need you. Let me go, you sentient bastard!"

The words stung as if Tony had hissed acid into his face…

* * *

Steve just sat there. Silence engulfed him and he realized stunned that his hands were shivering and his breathing was shallow and erratic. The words still hurt. And that pain in his back wasn't only due to his hunched position. Breathing had never been so hard ever since he was small and scrawny and sick all the time.

The void of feeling useless opened up again and gaped at Steve. He desperately needed to dig up one more memory. He couldn't…

He couldn't finish his sketchbook with these ones…

* * *

Steve's past few days ran past him. He was… well, he fell into a rhythm of daily activity and when he woke up from that trance he had to force himself to recall fragments of memories of what he had been doing.

Sleeping definitely didn't play a major role in his life the past week.

In the mornings he dutifully emerged from his room and kissed his mother goodbye or welcome in a daze. Then when she complained tiredly after about three days that he prickled, he shaved. And somewhere instead of lunch and before his shift he took a shower – because he felt he should by now. Thanks for long years of careful upbringing on his mother's side.

He only ate when his body was really threatening to shut down if he didn't provide it with acceptable nutrition. It wasn't warzone for God's sake! So he ate and scribbled at the same time, because his hand just refused to let go of the pencil. Steve had to learn the hard way that it was still better with the pencil glued to his smudged right hand than having to jump up from the table and run to his room in order to get a scribble down on paper before the vengeful little shit decided to evaporate from him before Steve had the chance to grab it and shake the dear life out of it.

Damn, now he sounded like Bucky in his soldier mode. Fantastic!

He wondered what his mother had thought of him during these days. Or moreover his colleges! He could barely recall Peter wondering about his well-being, then shrugging the whole thing off after Steve reassured him with a kind smile that he was all right, just end of terms are giving him a hard time. Or something. Seemed legit, right?

Only that he hadn't made any progress with his project. Not even a line.

Sad.

But he had listened to all possible combination of his media folder. Every single track on shuffle, straight put on repeat, he created so many playlists he surprised even himself that his old (like rock of ages old) computer was capable of such performance.

Then as he was mulling over how to end his sketchbook so that he could hand it out without any doubt and remorse he caught fragments of the TV-show from the next room.

The signal of a show he watched about a week ago.

And it just hit him what he wanted to draw last.

Tony from last week. Older and smarter, clean and crispy and stunning.

Steve sketched him up from the moment he finally started to talk about his life with his mystery man. When he unconsciously hurt Steve on the best and worst way possible. Because on the one hand Steve could cry in joy that Tony was alive and even remembered him, and thought of him as the best period of his life even if he wrapped it up in an irritating amount of sarcasm. On the other hand, however, Steve couldn't fight back that wrenching emptiness that gaped in him, because he couldn't wrap his mind around why Tony had left that day -

No, he was fighting not to go down that road.

He was happy, Tony was alive. And more than that! He was brilliant – he got everything Steve'd thought he was worth. And he was special. As if Steve hadn't known this already. He wondered if he was the same to Tony…?

He tried to fill those sketch-eyes with all the depths they contained in his memories. The honest mirth dancing in them when they first talked and Tony joked about Steve not having the lung capacity to last a monologue not to mention sing. And also that deep, intangible sadness he saw there on top of the roof after the rain when he caught Tony smoking, entwined with that burning cold hatred that hid behind that resigned cover he glimpsed in those eyes when Tony was hunched in the corner of the nick and over the wrecks of his destroyed flat.

And there were still people who questioned why he loved eyes so much. If he could show them Tony's eyes and how secretive and expressive they are at the same time they won't question him ever again. But he would rather not. That sight was his.

Now he was being possessive. Just great. Cool, Steve, you're losing your mind over a drawing. No. Not a drawing. Over Tony Stark. Oh man…

A few more finishing touches and it was already Thursday evening. Afternoon, but it was already getting darker outside. Before he could change his mind, Steve got up, took his coat and with the sketchbook tugged under his arm he set off to Manhattan.

Luckily he was too nervous and was too busy not getting lost in the subway to worry too much about what he was going to do. Thoughts like '_What if he doesn't really remember me?_' '_What if he just throws me out?_' '_What if the whole thing was just for the show?'_'_What if he changed too much…?_' And there were several similar and worse _What if_s about his stupidity as he walked up the stairs to the entrance of Stark Industries.

There was no going back.

Steve fought his embarrassment and squared his shoulders as he walked up to the reception where a middle-age secretary was on the phone at the moment. She offered Steve a small smile and mouthed "Just a second" and went back to taking notes and frowning occasionally. But whoever was on the other end, she was probably used to the extra or crazy wishes she jotted down.

Her nametag said Bambina Arbogast.

Steve smiled back at her politely when she finally hung up the call.

"Good afternoon, and welcome to Stark Industries. How can I help you? You seem a bit lost" she smiled again, but it was rather the polite side of kindness. The one which was more effective than scaring the poor lost guy to hell.

"Good afternoon. Well, yes, ma'am" Steve couldn't help his instincts and stood at attention for a moment then relaxed a bit. "I'm looking for" _Tony _"Mr. Stark"

This name sounded all too strange on his tongue. Tony was nearly five years younger than him for God's sake!

"And who is looking for him?"

"My name is Steve Rogers, ma'am"

"You didn't come for a meeting, I presume" Mrs. Arbogast eyed her over the edge of her glasses, her hand resting near the key-board.

There was nothing to deny. Steve obviously looked out of place with his leather jacket, and cargo pants among the other employees and businessmen in suits.

"No. No, I just brought him something" _Don't blush!_

"So you have no appointment"

Steve had never been a good liar, and it would be in vain anyway. He couldn't just say, 'Yes, but we only talked on the phone, and Mr. Stark probably forgot to mention me, but he surely is expecting me.' Those vigilant eyes would unveil his poor attempts at lying even before they actually left his lips.

"No, ma'am" there was a small appreciative glimmer in her eyes. "I just simply want to give him something"

"Mr. Stark doesn't like being handed things, and right now" she pushed the button on the side of her headset and frowned again "he is in the middle of a meeting with Ms. Potts. But I can send it up to him, if you just leave your package here"

There was no real need to ask for confirming his identity or to demand Steve confessed what he brought. She probably could see in him that he only wanted to get over it, and he meant absolutely no harm.

Steve exhaled through his nose. All right, he can do this…

"That would be great. Could I get a piece of paper?"

Mrs. Arbogast sent him another strange look but handed him an empty sheet. Steve fished a pen out of his pocket and after some thinking he wrote with flourish '_My doorstep wouldn't mind getting to know you. S.R._' He folded the paper in half and pinned it over the hard cover of the sketchbook, then handed the whole pack to Mrs. Arbogast and waved goodbye to SI.

Now he only had to get home without turning back, running up the stairs and tell Mrs. Arbogast to just forget the whole thing, he was an idiot and he would just leave with the book.

He managed to get onto the underground without doing so. And Steve finally had the chance to breathe a bit more freely and contemplate his actions. Soon nervousness settled in his guts. Because what the hell made him do this?

Let's say it's okay to draw someone you like. Maybe adore, but Steve wouldn't really go that far. He liked Tony, and he pretty much enjoyed drawing him. That was okay. He had a classmate who had her whole room covered in pictures of an actor. But not when you filled an entire sketchbook with the said man and all this in just one week! And you most certainly, if you really can't stop yourself, you just hide the book under your bed, so that no one would find out (and assume you had an unhealthy crush on the model of said drawings) and definitely **not** give it to them!

Steve didn't know if he should be grateful or feel depressed that he couldn't give his work to Tony in person. Because sure, it would be great seeing him again, making sure that he was really good and wasn't just the makeup and the lighting for a TV show. Reassuring himself that this person, Tony Stark really was the same Tony he held so dear. However, if it really is as creepy as he now thought it was to draw a guy and then present the drawings to him (even if that guy was as narcissist as Tony Stark was said to be) then it was definitely better not doing it in person. Steve couldn't handle the humiliation.

Now only the insecurity remained. Will Tony get his present? Or does he get so many fanmails and gifts that his secretary doesn't even deliver them to him, just dump them in the trash? Or if Tony gets his sketchbook, how will he know how Tony reacted?

And if Tony decided to get in contact with him – he couldn't really think Tony would come to his door – how would they start over? Would they start over as if they'd only met for the first time? Or as if nothing had happened and Tony hadn't been gone for six years? Or would it be all awkward, because Steve really wanted to know what'd been going on, and knowing Tony, he wouldn't want to explain and…

So many questions – they would be enough for Steve to make an emotional and physical wreck out of himself for the time he arrived home.

There was only one thing he knew more or less for sure. He'd missed Tony.

He tried to forget him. To give himself the believe that Tony really meant nothing to him, and vice versa. But he missed him. He didn't think about him all day and night like he had after his leave but how else could he explain that the old memories came back to him so easy and ready?

Steve missed the bantering. The jokes, the snarky, cynical comments. Tony's presence. His warmth. The small songs he hummed while swirling the screwdriver in his hand. Everything. He missed his friend.

Not as if he hadn't had friends. Steve had friends. Of course, he did. He was the type of guy you just had to like. But there was a difference between friends and friends.

There were his classmates. Some of them were really interesting, extravagant and crazy but warm-hearted. And there was Peter from the café he was working at.

Then there was Peggy, even after they broke up they remained good friends, and she became like a little sister to him, but right now she was away on the Western-coast with her husband, planning to establish a family. They chatted on the Internet and she shared all her ideas and she was pouting because of her husband to Steve all the time, but there was no high-tech technology that could nullify the distances of a whole continent.

He had Bucky too, of course. But right now and for years, Bucky had been staying in Afghanistan. He was finally coming back in a few weeks (he wrote this a few weeks ago, so that was as sure as it sounds), and he had a lot of similarities with Tony, and Bucky had known him for probably the longest, and were best friends ever since, but that wasn't the same.

To tell the truth, Steve really missed the instant and direct connection. For the person to be next to him. So that he could feel they were real and what they had together was also real.

* * *

Fantastic.

The rain couldn't wait until he arrived home. Great. Now he wasn't only confused but cold and wet too.

He just opened the lock when he heard the main door slam with a loud DONG! and then his name echoed through the stairway.

"STEVE!"

Steve stunned moved to the railing and looked down. He caught the glimpse of a man staring up too and then he only saw a splash of white rushing and stumbling up the stairs. A few moments later there was the man in business pants and a wet shirt nearly falling flat on his face on the top stair – that curse sounded painfully familiar – and before Steve could take a better look of the bewildered face the man sprung at him, threw his toned arms around his neck –

And the next second Steve had his arms full with one wet and cold Tony Stark making some undefinable happy sounds.

Steve put his own arms around the narrow waist in a daze, his brain unable to do the catching up. Tony was even shorter – even though he had to grow a bit in the past few years, and he had to lean on his tip toes to be able to hug Steve like that and bury his face in the crook of his neck, getting under the collar of his jacket.

As the smaller body started slightly shivering in his embrace Steve instinctively pulled him closer, and it only registered in him that Tony was wet and he only had a thin shirt on with its sleeves rolled up over his elbow –

And he _prayed_ he didn't only fall asleep on the subway.

* * *

TBC

* * *

**A/N: Hurray! Meeting finally! :D**

Sorry that it took me so long, and this chapter became even longer than I thought. See? This is why I had to pick them apart. **I'd like to say a huge THANK YOU to all my dearest reviewers! ** (and yes, Tony sort of was a caretaker. Because, seriously? He would have ruined all his teachers, and just imagine genius Tony Stark at an average high school... not the safest idea)

I slept like 3 hours today and I've been running too long only on a cup of coffee, so sorry for the result. I hope you'll like it though! I'm very grateful for you guys!

I don't think I'll be uploading soon (I still have 5 exams coming) so have this extra long for now. :(

However reviews might change my mind ;)


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: **_Guys, I don't deserve you! Thank you very much for the reviews, and the nice comments! (they are sittig copied into small notes on my table top :)) You have no idea what they mean to me! *n* I love you so much!_

_So have an extra long chapter :) hope you'll like it_

* * *

**Sketches**

**~Chapter 9~**

~*You tell or I hack?*~

"Uh, sorry. It's awkward" Tony huffed a nervous chuckle in Steve's neck and with tentative moves, as if he didn't want to scare the beast he just tamed pulled back from Steve's arms. "Not to mention cheesy as fuck. Sorry" Tony flashed Steve a shy grin and just stopped his hand to rub at the back of his neck uncomfortably.

Steve was reluctant all the same to let Tony out of his arms, but now at least he knew that yes, Tony was actually here with him and he wasn't to be shaken awake by some compassionate passenger on the underground. And there was nothing to deny – it was so sweet he already felt his back teeth ache and rot to the root.

However, the easy air was blown away as Steve was still too dumbstruck from joy and relief to come up with any coherent sentence not to mention get his mouth to form anything competent and not just a softly fading idiotic goofy grin, and Tony still proved to be prone to jump to silly conclusions, such as despite everything he wasn't really needed –

"You know I can go if I'm bothering you right now and maybe call you later for a beer or something, I have my car–"

"You are not going anywhere drenched like this" Steve's delighted smile slipped into a stern frown, reaching for a tone he hadn't really used any more, only when he really had to kick Peter's ass at work to get moving, because he could be that much demanding – commanding – and you just could not say no.

He opened the door and gestured toward it. "I invited you first after all"

"Only to your doorstep" Tony mumbled under his breath as he eyed said part of the house suspiciously, but Steve could see the tension and insecurity flowing off the determined set of his shoulders.

"Don't be stupid" Steve smacked Tony on the arm lightly for good old times' sake and was further relieved when Tony cracked a grin – easy and mischievous and let himself be ushered into the warmth of the apartment.

"It's still not really big, we basically just changed city but now at least you would have a bigger closet to fill up with junk"

Tony rolled his eyes and sent him an exasperated half-stern look as if accusing Steve of being a hypocrite with calling _him _stupid before.

"Hey! Those were WIP projects of my restrained genius" Tony sulked as he toed off his training shoes.

Leave it up to Tony to wear those with a suit. The brand didn't register in Steve's mind but despite being soaked they looked expensive and classy and definitely unworn.

Steve really had a lot of catching up with Tony and wearing and _having_ expensive things. He told himself the strange pang in his chest was just some kind of home-sick feeling. It was his own fault not googling the guy in the first place so that the difference wasn't so enormous. Not that he couldn't appreciate the white shirt that wet just clung to Tony's flexing muscles as he struggled with his other shoe, but he really missed the old worn jeans and baggy jumpers.

"-eve! Earth to Steve, you in there?"

Steve tumbled into the shoe rack Tony's snapping fingers in front of his face caught him so off guard. When Tony tumbled into him with a small surprised yelp did he only realise that he caught Tony's wrist instinctively. He let it go immediately when he caught glimpse of the other's painfully rounding disbelieving eyes.

"I'm sorry!" Steve apologized and helped Tony back to his feet. For a bare second he could see the whitened marks on Tony's wrist where he'd squeezed too tight.

Guilt flooded through him with overwhelming waves, but he tried to shrug the haze away quickly and focus his attention back to Tony.

He felt from very far away a soft rippling that hummed of insecurity and doubt under the fog of a kind, superior smile.

"You know, I really can go, it's no big deal"

"Don't be stupid, Tony, I meant it" Steve tried to cover up his uneasiness with a frown and then remembered he should release the tension somehow he added "I'm just not used to the overwhelming awesomeness of having Tony Stark under my roof."

Tony chuckled lightly and it was all bright and sunny, even though Steve should have switched on the lights long ago. The only reason they weren't engulfed in darkness was because Steve also forgot to close the door. That would explain the small shudder shaking Tony's frame.

"Sorry, really. You were saying?" Steve quickly shut the door and reached around Tony for the switch, his hand and then arm both coming in contact with Tony's shoulder "Jesus, Tony, you're freezing cold!" he exclaimed before the other finally could have a chance to restate his question. Statement. Whatever. "Come on, I'll get you something warm"

Steve beckoned Tony to follow him and headed towards his room to dig out a jumper.

"How did you even get so wet? Didn't you say you were with car?"

"Well, yeah, but have you been outside? Rain's just pouring out from heavens" Tony shrugged from his position, leaning with his shoulder at the doorframe, hips tilted slightly out, his eager eyes scanning in the whole room. The mess Steve had left in his troubled hurry, his drawing tools and appliances scattered on Mrs. Frankenstein (the full given name of his desk was Mrs. Frankenstein's Genius Creepy Monster, but that was simply too long), the freshly washed and ironed clothes piled on his bed, the canvas stretched and empty hidden in the corner behind layers of papers and folders, and his only potted plant in the window. Poor little thing was dying for some sunlight.

"It's just a few steps altogether"

"Yeah, and how do you think _my _brand new Volvo would look like in front of this building?"

Steve turned back to level Tony with a funny look. Definitely need to do some catching ups on Tony Stark's new taste.

"Exactly" Tony drawled satisfied, then let his arms dingle at his sides casually while focusing his attention to Steve's broad back "Maybe you'd answer me while you dig up your whole wardrobe. So you're still living with your mom?"

"Yeah. How d'ya know?"

"I'm sure half of the shoes at the entrance are way too small for you, darling"

"I don't have anything to deny. I know it's not really cool to still be living with your mum at 27, but the flat I rented just burnt down before I could move there-"

"Man, that sucks" Tony winced.

"- it was a few months ago actually and I haven't found a new one yet. Maybe for the new year, you know" Steve shrugged. It wasn't that bad now. He lost a good part of his rent but luckily he hadn't moved all his stuff there yet. So now he was also working hard not only for his tuition fee and to help out his mother but to be able to move out finally. "How did you know where I lived, by the way?"

"Well, since you forgot to insert your address next to the invitation…"

"Damn, sorry, I didn't really think about it"

"So it wasn't a real invitation?"

"Of course it was! I told you so! I'm sorry, really!"

Tony's gentle chuckle interrupted him, and Steve looked up to meet warm brown gaze for a second, before it regained its usual cover of witticism. "You know I have the best tech on earth, right? And I'm a genius. Didn't take more than three minutes to find out where you live"

"And I should feel secure because of that?" Steve stared at Tony with disbelieving eyes, because how? Okay, he should watch some more TV maybe.

"It's not a problem for me to look up people in databases. Unlike others"

"Tony, I-" Steve was about to apologize, sincerely, because now he was feeling really awkward skipping to look up what'd happened to Tony so far –

"Don't feel bad about it, sweetheart for a second. I'm quite grateful actually" and Tony smiled again without the tense curves he usually showed. "You wouldn't find nice things there. And you know how the tabloids are sometimes. But they can be quite entertaining after a scotch and if your boss isn't whining in your ear about them"

"It must be hard" Steve said on a gentle tone.

Tony only shrugged. "I'm used to it. I've been in the media ever since I was born so, no big deal"

"Here, take this one"

Steve rose to his feet and handed a big blue hoodie to Tony.

"Yay! My favourite Captain jumper!" Tony exclaimed all bright and sunshine and quickly stuck his arms into the jumper, when Steve finally caught his elbow.

"You seriously want to put it over that wet shirt?"

"It's not like I haven't had worse. It's all cool, Steve"

"Yeah, that's the problem. Cool. You'll catch a cold"

"But _Captain hoodie_!" Tony whined like a four year old, when a 'because I said so' would explain why the world moves, and Steve had to laugh. A happy, untainted sound.

"No, I won't allow that" He stated firm but on a soothing voice like when addressing a small petulant child. "Take that shirt off first. So that it can dry and you will be warm and cozy"

Tony glared at his outstretched hand for a while with an adorable pout but eventually his shoulders slumped in surrender and threw the jumper back at Steve's head. Steve peeled the clothing from his face with a wide grin and waited while Tony undid all the buttons of his shirt, to reveal that he had a no less soaked tank top with some strange round blue symbol on the chest underneath.

"Yes, Mom! Imma take all my wet clothes off" Tony rolled his eyes exasperatedly and threw all of them at Steve, before quickly snatching the hoodie and sliding into it.

Deep down Steve might have felt a bit disappointed that he couldn't catch a glimpse of the now nicely toned chest. He had to satisfy with his arms. Not that it was so bad at all.

Tony hummed in contentment as warmth engulfed him finally. Not the same as it had been with Steve's arms around him, but the feeling was close. He pulled the jumper around himself tighter, snuggling into the warmth.

"I'll hang your clothes to dry and get you a towel, and also get you something to warm you up from the inside. Sounds good?"

"Steeevee, I love you!"

The long-drawn happy whine accompanied Steve to the bathroom where he had to fight a bit with the twisted and annoyingly wet sleeves of the shirt. A small suspiciously motherly sounding voice was sulking irritated about Tony treating all his stuff so uncaring, as if he had so many and so much better at home, so that he could just throw them away into the corner. Then he had to correct himself. Actually, Tony probably had a whole wardrobe as big as his flat. As a billionaire he probably could afford that…

Steve made his way into the kitchen to see what he had to offer.

"Coffee or tea, Tony?" he shouted over his shoulder. Lucky that their flat was only big enough that he didn't have to cry out too loud.

"Coffee anytime" And shame that the neighbours wouldn't appreciate Tony's chosen volume level as a response.

Of course. Steve smiled a small smile under his breath as he turned on the kettle. He'll have to apologize for the lack of quality, since neither Steve nor his mother were addicted coffee drinkers, so they only stored some packets of 3 in 1, but Tony didn't really have a choice if he wanted coffee. He should be grateful for the warmth.

"I only have some 3 in 1, is it also okay with you, or… Tony, you good?" Steve's smile faded immediately when he spotted Tony pegged down in front of the framed pictures lined up on the bookshelf.

"Mm-hmm" Tony hummed in agreement – a hollow sound compared to his previous cheerful shout. He turned towards Steve but only with his torso, eyes glued to one photo in particular. "So, was I a prophet calling you Captain all those years ago?"

Despite the warmth of the room, Steve felt cold, his insides crunched, and he had to fight the lump in his throat as he couldn't take his eyes off Tony and where his unreadable gaze burnt a hole into the picture of Steve in his uniform with all his insignia. It's not like he wasn't proud of what he'd reached. He was indeed very proud and liked that picture very much. Only the memory of how much trouble he had gone through to look good enough and not deadly pale and someone who just returned from the dead so that he could lie to the very first time to his mother about his time at the military.

"It was quite just honorary before discharge. I was a sergeant actually…" he wasn't really keen on telling the whole story, and he really hoped Tony would put it aside until he himself felt like trading stories.

Tony hummed again and rubbed at his elbow.

"Afghanistan?"

"Yes" Steve said, his voice stifled but the word cut painfully harsh in the heavy silence.

Tony tilted his head to the side, the tendons in his neck tight, the set of his shoulder stiff and determined.

"I joined the army short after graduation" Steve spoke up when he realized that they weren't going anywhere, so he set his jaw, squared his shoulder, good old habits long before they gained a military undertone, and began to sum up what might satisfy Ton's curiosity. "Served there for four years two months. Then I was shot, discharged and sent back home to heal. I didn't join again. Mum's happy, I'm fine. That's it"

Long silence settled between the two again. Steve didn't realize that he'd clenched his hands into fists while he was speaking, so now he nervously curled and uncurled his fingers, his stare fixed at the back of Tony's head, and silently praying that Tony'd just leave it.

"So I'm afraid I'll have to steal your Captain America hoodie" Tony said in the end and turned back at Steve with a small lopsided grin.

_Thank God!_

"Captain America?" Steve shot back incredulous and quirked a sceptical eyebrow in response.

"Well of course. It's blue and has a star and red and white stripes. And yours. Can't be more American with the flag plastered on it"

"You are strange. And who said I'm giving it to you?"

"As if I needed your permission. I'll just simply not take it off. Knowing you, you won't tear it off me" there was that old smirk that made the previous heavy moments forgotten. Steve didn't feel like correcting Tony in his belief that he wouldn't get his jumper back so that he wouldn't have a half-naked Stark as a result. He missed the point of military and the scale of nudity happening there.

"So, 3 in one is perfect. As long as it has caffeine in it" Tony walked passed Steve as he heard the kettle whistling. "I caught a few hours of sleep last night and already had like seven cups today, so I don't think I'd really need any more caffeine-punches"

"If you say so"

"Just with _lots_ of sugar, please?"Tony chimed, again as a kid who was just about to go for his first day at school and was all too high already from the anticipation of the new experience.

"How '_lots'_ exactly?" Steve levelled him with a suspicious look as Tony spun the kitchen chair on its hind legs and straddled it, folding his arms on the backrest.

"Half sugar, half coffee" Tony chirped.

"And you just said you don't want to be on a rush"

But Steve complied anyway. It was comfortable. Sugar and Tony seemed to grant an easy atmosphere so that they hopefully could avoid any similar conversation like the previous one in the living room. Well… How is Steve going to draw up a tactful enough question to find out why Tony had left? He was a great strategist, but this proved to be Level 9 difficult question, with further hindering effects of Tony speaking all the time.

"So, hey, what's up with you either way?" Tony asked "We just missed this usual how-to-start-a-normal-conversation part with all the hugging and happy bonding."

"Umm, I'm good" Steve tried and failed hiding his smile as he presented Tony his mug of awfully sweet coffee. "A bit tired, but very good"

"Aww, come on, Steve! Give me some more! You can't go with just these barely more than one word answers!"

"You make up for that on my behalf" Steve laughed as he saw the pout on Tony's face, and turned back to ready his own tea.

"That was a low blow, Rogers" Tony took a long gulp of his drink not caring for the burn. He must have burnt off all the nerves on his tongue and throat.

When he set the mug back on the table and Steve took his own seat as well Tony levelled Steve with an even, calculating look with a dangerous glint behind the façade.

"Tell you what. You have two choices: a) you tell me everything I wanna know, what happened with you, skipping the war stories, because I've already had my fair share of them with Rhodey, or b) I hack every possible database still this night and learn every little dirty secret of yours"

"As if you could do that" Steve challenged, because seriously – what a drama queen!

"Try me" His eyebrows rose to daring heights and a shark sharp smile graced his features.

Steve had no doubt in that very moment that he was safer opening up, especially since Tony offered willingly that he could skip elaborating on his time with the military. He found out where he lived in minutes, so…

"Okay, but there aren't much to talk about" he came around with a withering smile as he watched Tony devour his coffee. "How can you drink it so sweet?" he winced.

"I can assure you, I don't have any habit that can be considered even as slightly healthy. Can I get some more?"

Tony was still Tony. How else would he pull the watering pleading puppy eyes so effectively again on Steve?

"What do you say about hot chocolate instead?" he offered, and felt warmth filling his whole body as Tony perked up immediately.

"Have I mentioned that I love you?"

"It might have come up" Steve answered with a smile and deliberately ignored both the small pang and hopeful fluttering in his chest.

"Pepper never gives me hot chocolate. Or I have to plead with her for _hours _and then she'd make me do awful lot of paperwork…" Tony sulked so far. "Okay, so it's been bugging me for a while" Tony shifted on his chair excited. The sugar and caffeine were taking effect on him. Steve dreaded the time it'll have a disastrous effect on his either way prone to be too quick for any normal being speech-speed. "And I have only seen one picture of you and – umm, Carter? Peggy Carter? in your room"

Steve made some noise that hopefully encouraged Tony to go on.

"So are you two – you know, together?"

"Nope"

"But were you? Please tell me, you made a move on her"

"Why, Tony? Why are you so interested in this so much?" Steve asked and he caught glimpse of Tony wince and opening his mouth to back out, but Steve smiled at him just in good time to stop him. "Yes, we were together during last year at high school, but actually broke up after I joined the army. We are good friends ever since. Though just for the record, it's not really the first thing you discuss on a 'first conversation'"

"Well, sorry, I'm not really good at small talk" Tony huffed and scratched the back of his head. "I'm like the ask blunt and straight ahead type, and you might have not noticed but I seriously lack a brain to mouth filter most of the times. Pepper threatened several times I'd end up dangling from the ceiling if I don't make up something for it, but I haven't sufficed yet"

_Always talking about Pepper. _Steve had heard the name in the talk show and could match it to Ms. Potts, but didn't know much more about her. She was Tony's boss maybe?

"Okay, never mind. I'll just need some time to get used to it"

"Okay. Cool. Well, I can tick out on my to-do list the 'match a hot blond up with the scary British chick'. Great. Now it got a nanomilimetre shorter"

"Sure. You with someone?" Steve sat back to the table stirring his refilled mug and passing Tony his.

"Which part of 'playboy' don't you know?"

"Pardon?"

Where did that come from? Steve stared at Tony with comically round eyes.

Tony just mirrored his expression, pressing the back of his hand to his forehead accompanied with a tragic toss of head. "Please tell me, you know what a playboy is"

"Of course I do!" Steve gasped and frowned to emphasize he very much did, thank you for the assumption, but be kind and tell me what it has to do with my question?

"So?"

"…So?"

"You're going to art school finally?"

"Wait-wait-wait! You didn't answer my question!"

"What question? _You_ are just avoiding mine"

"No, you didn't answer if you had a girlfriend or not"

"I'm sure I already did before you even asked" Tony quirked an eyebrow confusedly high, then seeing Steve's annoyed frown let out an exasperated sigh and slowed down to explain, like you do to a small child who can't keep up with you. Well, Tony wasn't particularly good at slowing down, but at least he tried. "I simply assumed you watched the show from last week, where I just stated for like the millionth time that I'm living the careless life of billionaire playboys. Which, in all sense means that I'm absolutely not a long-term relationship material, and as of much, don't have a girlfriend. Nor a boyfriend, before you ask. But you surely wouldn't, I'm just being generous."

"Yes, I'm at art school" Steve said. He had his explanation, thanks. Good. Fine. Now he answered too. "It's my second year, and –" A polyphonic tune interrupted him.

Steve looked at Tony sheepish and apologetic – until he saw the pained and flabbergasted expression scrunching up the genius's expression.

"Tell me it's only my ear ringing!" Tony whined. His eyes really were begging him to say so.

"No, sorry, that's my phone"

"Answer it, damn you, I need to hear it a bit longer and I'm destroying it"

"No need to get violent" Steve scolded half heartedly as he stalked out the room to fish his phone from his jacket.

"It doesn't have the right to be called cell phone! More like a brick! I don't even bother to identify that rock of ages thing!" Tony shouted after him, absolutely as displeased as he sounded.

Steve only laughed as he stumbled to press the answer button of his old little Nokia 6230. He only knew the number because all his friends were teasing him with it for more than five years now. It was a bit small in his too big hands, but it was a loyal little thing, and served him just right.

"Steve Rogers"

Steve barely had the chance to call in, before a dear but obnoxiously irritated voice interrupted him and making the blond laugh under his breath.

"Why do you have a phone if I can't reach you anyhow, man?"

"Sorry, Bucky, I was out..." Steve tried to tone down the amusement in his voice not to irritate his friend any further.

"And left your phone at home" He could feel the evil eye even through God knows how many miles.

"Yes"

"You're probably the only human being who'd live happily in the 40's" Bucky rolled his eyes from the other side of the line "Were on a date finally?"

"Umm, no" And Steve rather turned his eyes heavenwards, so that he wouldn't have to see the curious glint in Tony's eyes through the doorway.

"Then there's no way I could forgive you. So, prepare yourself, bro, I'm coming home, and from three days on, we're going to get wasted!"

"Bucky, you know that I'm having exams and-"

"Hey! You haven't seen me for two years and this is how you welcome me?"

"If you're such a drama queen-"

"Then I'd better stay here a bit longer for a later departure, maybe someone shoots me and gets me out of your hair, Mr. Exams-are-more-important-than-my-_best_-friend"

"Jesus, Bucky, all right, all right. They can wait!"

Bucky laughed triumphant and Steve wondered if he even threw his fists up in the air like he usually did.

"Man, it's still too easy to emotionally blackmail you. You're too nice"

"You're working on changing it" Steve growled, pressing his fingers onto the bridge of his nose as much as to ease the nerves as to hide the smile, even if it was still obvious in his voice.

"But you can't take back your word!" Bucky exclaimed victorious. "I gotta go, Steve, just wanted to warn you, so clear your schedule for Monday! Kiss Sarah for me"

"I'll. Bye, Buck, take care!"

"Sure, sure. I can't kick the bucket two days before departure. I hope they don't fuck up anything. See ya!"

Steve hung up shaking his head with a small disbelieving smile. Of course Bucky would joke it away.

So taking Monday off. He needed to remember that. His mother would be overjoyed when she finally comes home from her friend. She'd been worrying about Bucky not giving any further life signals for three weeks when he announced that it looked like finally his unit would come home. Even though she didn't give word to her worries, Steve knew her enough that she was thinking about Tony leaving. Because Tony also left when everything seemed to be fine and perfect, and Bucky could be the same. Especially that he was in a war zone where anything could happen…

On specially dark mornings they just met each other's gaze, secretly knowing that both of them were thinking and fearing the same, while on the outside they changed kind encouraging smiles, that said 'Have a nice day, darling!'.

"How come you always look distressed when talking to Barnes on the phone?" Tony's amused tone jerked Steve back from his thoughts.

"How come you always assume that without even looking at me?" Steve retorted, but the edge was lost in his delighted mood.

"Steve, baby, if you devote your life to piss everyone off for so long like me, you know where you could insert a jab, no matter what" Tony glanced up at him from under his lowered lashes and smiled mischievously.

Steve was suddenly utterly grateful for not taking a sip of his cooling cocoa. It would have been awkward sputtering it out onto the other's definitely high-tech and even more expensive tablet.

"Well, I'm definitely not distressed. I'm very happy as in fact" Steve insisted. "He's finally being withdrawn from Afghanistan"

"Lucky, that his unit is among the first ones" Tony hummed and tapped a few things away on his tablet shoving it away to the edge of the table, leaning back a bit in his chair and devoting all his attention back to Steve quirking an eyebrow in question. "So. Art school?"

"Oh yes! I'm doing my second year and have one more to finish. I'm studying everything. More or less, art history is very interesting, the teacher makes it quite enjoyable and gives a lot of individual projects, but she's a bit scary as in having her mood swings. From one lesson to the other, you know" Tony hummed, and his eyes brightened up, following all the widening movements of Steve's hand, then wandering all over his body and face, settling comfortably when he caught his gaze as Steve went on about his courses.

"… I prefer drawing figures though. Objects and the vases are cool too, and I never knew how difficult they really are, until Mr. Crook fussed with me during all the first month, that my sketches were pathetic and how did I even get in, and no worm would covet this apple not even if it was the last one"

Tony burst out laughing – a chilling but only on a very nice way, like glimmering pearls rolling around a thick carpet that's warm under your bare feet.

"Seriously, I'm quoting!" Steve joined him. "He was even worse off with Clint – a friend of mine. Poor guy wasted a year at Fine Arts before he realized that wasn't his thing-"

"But he still got in? Aren't those prelim shits all damn hard? I mean, applicants flee crying and all"

"Well, you're not entirely wrong" Steve mused. "He was good, a bit eccentric, and always said 'This classic shit is boring'"

"I already like him"

"But everybody should know the basics, before they can revolutionize"

"But sometimes you just gotta run before you learn how to walk" Tony shot back, then acknowledging his victory in the non-existent argument dismissed his words with a generous wave of his hand. "So what's with your harpy teacher and your friend?"

"Well, we were drawing rectangles-"

"Jeez, those are boring"

"Did you too?"

"Had some free time and the girls got boring at engineering, so I took some courses from architecture. You may never know when you're gonna design your own home" that quirked a smirk in the corner of Tony's lips.

"Wow. Aren't you something?"

"Well, thank you dear. So, rectangles…?"

Tony deliberately ignored the hidden huge question mark in Steve's comment, that would have inquired for further details about Tony's studies, but probably this is the only way he was going to learn anything about Tony's past. Small hints here and there that wouldn't really add up to a whole round story. Tony just always turned the interrogation back at Steve. And you know what? The way he showered Steve with his attention, he couldn't care less.

"Yeah, and cubes. Clint drew the edges of his cubes… I don't know how to put it – they just weren't straight, no, don't dare to joke it away, or I won't tell this story!" Tony just hold up his open palms in the universal sign of I mean no harm, don't worry, and don't give me the evil eye!

"They were just crooked. Not two were parallel. They were hollow, that's it. So Mr. Crook were walking around and criticizing everyone, and when he reached Clint he nearly got a stroke, I swear! At first he went all pale and then all the blood flushed back to his face. He tore the paper off of Clint's tablet, showed it around the class – I swear, we thought he was going to rip it apart. 'This is the profanation of visual art, how the hell did you get a black hole in the middle of this pitiful cube? I can't even call this _thing_ a cube. It's just a _thing_…' and on and on, giving Clint a piece of his mind"

"The old bastard just can't appreciate creativity"

"Well, sure. It was awful. But the black-hole is being quoted ever since. Poor Clint. He never came back to class"

"I can absolutely understand him" Tony scoffed.

"Yeah, me too. I never bothered him with it. After the first semester though, he disappeared from all the classes. He changed major, now he's in photography. He's really great at that"

"Like everyone-is-great-because-I'm-Steve-Rogers-and-too -nice-to-tell-otherwise or great-great?"

"I mean great-great" Steve ignored the wiggling eyebrows. "You should see his pictures. They have a very unique point of view. Like literally too. Clint is awesome at crawling up to places no sane person would, and he has great eye to catch the best pictures ever"

"Hmm… Maybe I'll check him out sometime. I'd need to get a present to Pepper anyway so that she isn't so pissed with me" Tony's attention and calculating mind shifted for a second away from Steve and he already felt its loss. Before he could question who this Pepper was exactly, Tony turned his charming smile and intelligent warm gaze at him and Steve already forgot that he felt sour for a moment. He wondered if Tony could wrap everyone around his finger with this little dizzying trick "How are your other friends?"

"Umm, I don't have that many of them" Steve tried his best to define who he and Tony called friends, and what he should tell about them.

"My mistake. I mean, best friends?" Steve only blinked at him owlishly at that, which elicited a chuckle out of Tony. "You're the type of guy, everyone likes. So obviously if I made a poll at your school and ask them about Steve Rogers, everyone would say 'oh, yeah, I love the guy!' or 'sure, he's my friend' because everyone would like to have a friend like you-"

_You too?_ screamed Steve's mind all of a sudden and he quickly averted his gaze and took a sip of his drink so that he wouldn't blurt it out and ruin the whole delighted chatty mood with such embarrassing topic again.

"- so rephrasing: who are you hanging out with? When you're not creeping after me"

Only the playful tone of Tony's words saved Steve from beating himself over with apologies and stuttered half sentences about the whole sketch-book incident. Plus Tony didn't give it back to Steve, so that obviously meant that he'd accepted it as a gift so-

"Well, as you know, I have Bucky, but we haven't really had the chance to hang out, because he's being withdrawn only now-"

There was a small flinch, a barely visible twitch that hardened the edge of Tony's lips and made his eyes darken. Steve assumed it was because Tony thought Steve was about to go into sharing his war stories, which he probably had grown tired of. For someone who had never been to war or never experienced the good sides of the military like the solidarity in your team, the old stories, reminiscing can grow boring after the first few. And Tony said he had his own fair share already, so Steve thought better of it, and no matter how much he loved Bucky, he'd rather start speaking of his other friends.

"- and Peggy, but she moved to Sacramento, so I haven't seen her either for a while. We talk sometimes on Skype, but she has a lot of things to do. Umm, I already mentioned Clint, he's obsessed with high places. He claims he sees everything better from a distance. And Natasha, she's Russian exchange, she can be scary, and I wouldn't get involved with her in a drinking game-"

"Never start drinking with Russians. Unless you want to end up absolutely wasted for the rest of the week. They start with vodka the moment they're born"

"In her case it just might be right" Steve admitted reluctantly with a frown. Because if you saw Natasha? She would scare a bear with one twitch of a perfect eyebrow. How they ended up as friends, he couldn't exactly recall, but they made a nice little bunch of strange people. Steve loved them. "They are like inseparable with Clint. Then sometimes there's Darcy and Jane, but they are from a different college, so we don't meet up all that often. And there's Thor. Well, with him, I have absolutely no idea what he's doing at Fine Arts"

"Thor? Like Thorsday Thor from Norse mythology?" Tony's eyes rounded in disbelieving amusement.

"Yeah" Steve grinned, because Tony hadn't even seen the man. He was bigger than Steve, blond, and blue-eyed and just absolutely Norse with the way he spoke and acted. He was generous and quite impossible to piss off. Clint had tried a few times, but he had never succeeded so far. Thor didn't really care if the teachers didn't fancy what he'd done. He was more than fine and satisfied in his own little world of edges and corners and Norse knots and curves. They were quite nice to look at, even though strange to the ordinary onlooker. Steve told as much to Tony, and from the glint in his eyes he could tell that Tony liked him all the same.

Steve was about to start introducing his colleague, Peter to Tony, when he realized that Tony was lost in his thoughts ever again. When Steve fell into silence, not to bother him, and no, he wasn't sulking, Tony jerked out of the whirlpool of his mind.

"Does Thor happen to have a slightly psychotic British sounding and yet all the same Norse brother?" Tony asked all of a sudden.

"A brother?" Steve frowned in thought, flipping through the conversations he had with the guy.

"Yeah with the name, Loki?" Tony prodded further and all of a sudden it dawned on Steve. The only time Thor's bright mood dimmed was when someone mentioned his brother and tried to make fun of him.

"Yes, he does! How did you know?"

Tony chuckled and leant back in his chair, just far enough so that he still wouldn't fall.

"He might have tested everything he's learn at psychology on me"

"Wait, what?"

"The world is quite small, and he was the only one who actually managed to analyze me from all the – how many? – seven psychologists I faced"

"You talk about them as battles" it sounds too much like Thor, well…

"You can say that" Tony laughed, but now the sound was sharper. "Well, Loki was the only one who saw through me and threatened to throw me out a window if I tire him with any of my shit. And trust me, he would have done that without much thinking. He's my favourite psycho"

To be honest, Steve really didn't know how to react to that. He wasn't that much of a snarky type to insert a witty come-back or make a joke about it. Maybe Tony would, so a cover of silence wouldn't stretch out over them. But Steve didn't mind. He remembered that his mother used to say that when silence falls to a room it's because an angel flew by. It was just superstition, but it felt nice. Steve had liked the concept of angels ever since he was a kid. It was nice to think that someone is looking out over you. And he felt blessed in that very moment. He got back his friend, Tony was here, and everything was going just fine – except for his project, but he felt he couldn't care less this very moment.

Well, the tired comfortably warm feeling lasted only until Tony spoke up again, questioning him about that empty canvas in the vacant corner of his room, and he had to admit out loud that he didn't know what to paint.

Okay, that wasn't entirely true. He had a vague idea, but it was quite blurry and shapeless still. Steve had played with the idea of asking Tony for some help, since it was somehow connected to him (was there anything in the past week of Steve's life that wasn't?) but now he felt too embarrassed to put his thoughts into words, and bend it a way that Tony wouldn't know Steve actually wanted to draw him.

Uhh… it felt even worse this way. He started to believe that his fascination with the man was nearing obsession. Oh, dear!

But he wasn't the only one with obsession-issues.

The introduction was that he wanted to try out some new things, like sci-fi – for Tony's great amusement, because he'd never imagine Steve with the high-tech stuff, especially that he was carrying around a cell-phone that would survive a T-Rex attack. When he finally got to sketch out his basic idea, and Tony's witty remarks died away, he could recognize the change in his eyes and the way he leant on the chair that he was interested and more than happy that his assistance was needed.

At first Tony's posture spoke of calculating tense attention, when a dog is listening intently for order, then his eyes grew slightly distant, but the light in them gleamed excitedly and he relaxed more, folded his arms on top of the backrest and laid his chin on top of them, his gaze following all gestures of Steve's hand and registering all lines of his pen in his mind from an observing distance.

"So an armor?" He asked, voice and the look of his face dreamy until his eyes flashed with something crazy, something unearthy light of creation.

"Yeah, a suit of armor or something. You know, the one you can wear and would empower you for all the super-hero stuff. Most of all flying" Steve realized only then that he probably had the same feverish gleam to his own eyes.

"I thought you were never much into flying"

_But you've always been._

"Times change" he shrugged it away.

"And what, do you want wings for that?"

"No, No! It would be cool, but not as a start. More like to have some rockets in the boots or something. But I don't really know how those things work"

Tony rubbed at his chin thoughtful for a moment and signalled only with his wiggling fingers that he'd need the pen and some paper to sketch on.

"For that, you'd need some stabilizers. There would be other means per se, but that can't be that difficult to create…Do you want to make the full armor?" he asked Steve between some drawings that didn't really make much sense for Steve.

"Something in the making process would be cooler. With displaying the plans and schematics somehow on monitors and hung up papers. That would be cool"

Tony sent him an incredulous look at that.

"Sure, but that would mean no paper, darling" he smirked. "if someone could build a suit like this, and I'm going to just call it a suit from now on, there won't be any paper based schematics. I'd be affronted. More like holograms. They are even cooler. And much more fun. Holograms, tablets, holo-screens"

"There's no problem with preferring the traditional materials. This is why I asked your help." Steve might have pouted at this point, but who cared. He loved brainstorming. And it wasn't even just a storm with Tony around. It was closer to a hurricane, which won't let you out of its grip.

"I'll show you a hologram screen next time, baby, because you're impossible. You'll realize you couldn't live without tech. My tech, actually" were the words Tony bid farewell to Steve two hours later, leaving him utterly tired, happy, with exhausted butterflies fluttering in his stomach, and wondering how he's going to make out anything of the huge pile of paper Tony'd sketched full with his ideas.

He forgot entirely that he didn't learn why Tony had left six years ago. And the thought didn't really emerge in him afterwards either. The only thing Steve cared for was that Tony was coming back.

* * *

**TBC**

* * *

**A/N:** Uhh, extra long, and just thinking about the next is going to be even longer... how are you dealing with me like this?

Sorry, I'm not entirelly satisfied with this one, but I wanted to update, you were so kind to me...

_About the next chapter,_ guess who's coming? Well, I never thought it would happen but quite recently I've fallen for Bucky. Real. Hard. The gifs and pics of the new Captain America movie on tumblr aren't helping at all, neither the amazing Bucky/Tony fic I can't go on reading because I worry for my feels, and still have an exam this Wednesday... so... In the next chapter Bucky is happening. I hope you won't abandon me for that. ^^;


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: **Wow, this took me longer than I intended... Another long chapter, and also had to pick it apart. I thought Bucky's going to make only a one-chapter appearance... well... He doesn't want to leave so sooon ^^;

I hope you'll enjoy ^^

* * *

**Sketches**

**~10~**

~*Doorstep*~

* * *

Steve shuffled out of his room to the kitchen, cursing himself for not having set his alarm.

He was more or less prepared to start an average day. Like an average-average day, not like one of those not-at-all-average-spiked-with-Tony-Stark average day.

And he also counted the past few days when he tried to catch up on the guy with a little help from Peter. Damn, the moment he uttered the name of Tony Stark, just by mere accident, maybe it was even some random customer in the café, Peter froze, then a feverish flush coloured his cheeks and ears with that strange gleam in his eyes that Steve only had when he was really into one of his projects. It turned out Peter was a fan of Tony. Steve's only problem with the rambling that started at 1.42 pm. sharp and lasted until good after 5 pm. only interrupted by those small interactions Peter had with their customers, that they weren't on the same scientifically intellectual level.

Even though Peter was just finishing high school, he was really smart – not exactly on the same level as Tony himself, Steve learnt, because what the hell? the guy who had been crashing at his humble abode for three months had graduated summa cum laude at MIT at the age of 17! – and so Peter took Tony as some kind of a role model, especially that he was also interested in physics and other sciences. Peter had been rambling on and on about the dissertations and articles that had been published in this and that famous journal, and he actually could recite by heart where and about what Tony Stark held a presentation.

So by the end of Friday, all the information about Tony Stark's scientific glory had been leaking from Steve's ears, and when his mother greeted him with a package that had been left on the doorstep and he found a StarkPhone within, no matter how much he loved Tony despite every shit he had Steve go through, he just couldn't care about the thing.

'_Don't let anyone else touch it'_

_TS_

-wrote the note. Steve took it to heart. He just put the device back into the box and didn't even go near it for two days.

When he finally did though, he had to acknowledge with a resigned sigh that this new technology really wasn't for him. He couldn't even turn on the damn thing. Maybe he'd ask Peter to help him out the next time he goes to work. Tony can't get mad at him. He should have deduced from his cell phone that he was on a cage man level with technology.

But now he was ready to start a day when he hopefully can register and analyze some useful information about Tony, so that he could build up a new picture about the now obscenely wealthy guy. Hopefully while painting some finally.

Well… Man proposes, God disposes.

He had overslept. Lucky, he hadn't had anything very important to do. He had his day off, because Bucky had threatened to drop by the very same day. Well, he hoped he could work on his painting a bit beforehand, but now he wasn't so sure about it anymore. Maybe he should just settle for going through Tony's notes and see how much use he can make of them.

Steve was so dazed and engrossed in his thoughts that on the first go he missed spotting Tony Stark in the living room.

He nearly jumped out of his skin and he was only a hair-width away from spilling his tea all over his tee, but definitely couldn't help the surprised yelp, which he'll still deny till the end of days.

For a bare second they were just standing in the room, as if the universe had been frozen for the moment. If it hadn't been for the flashing screen on the coffee table, half covered with Tony's jacket, Steve would have eagerly believed that time had stopped. That way he wouldn't have had to flip through the old worries of Tony never staying calm and unmoving.

But then Tony shrugged, like just shrugging away a too heavy winter coat when the spring sunlight finally warms you up, and turned to face Steve.

"I never thought I'd live the day I'm up earlier than you, soldier boy" Tony teased as greeting, patting Steve good naturedly on the arm.

"Miracles happen" Steve deadpanned, and took a sip from his hot drink to kick his mind back in gear. "So, how'd ya get in? If you say you picked the lock, I'm gonna kick you out for sure"

"You can't be so mean, Steve. You're too good for that" Tony whined, but his voice spoke volumes of how much longer he had been awake. Judging from the dark circles under his eyes, Steve supposed ever since their previous meeting.

Steve quirked an eyebrow. "You know there are things called bells, right? They are supposed to announce one's arrival, if you don't have a receptionist to do that for ya"

"Very funny, and guess what? I have a bell too, smartass" Tony rubbed at his eyes tiredly, and slightly turned away so that his phone was only at the very edge of the periphery of his view. The lines around his mouth tightened despite the ease he tried to squeeze into his voice. "But nope. Your mom nicked me before I got in. In my defence I didn't want to wake anyone, and I didn't cause a heart attack or anything, and she all but frowned at me and beckoned me in –"

The phone flashed again, and Tony crossed his arms with a huff over his chest and turned even more. Though it didn't actually ease his body language that he was now half facing the door and he could both catch glimpses of Steve's worried look and the picture of Steve in his uniform he had been staring at for hours with shoulders tense and air grim around him.

"Is everything all right, Tony?"

"Look, I just didn't want to wake you. I was just waiting here in silence I swear," Tony carded his hands through his hair, and he looked just slightly at this side of desperate. "because I know that people need sleep, even if I constantly neglect it-"

"When was the last time you slept?" Steve asked sternly, so that even Tony winced at his tone.

"We're not having that conversation again, are we? Because now in my defence I have some actual work to get done –"

"Tony"

"Dunno" Tony sighed defeated and turned back to face Steve, shoulders slumped and all façade falling away. "I took a nap at yesterday's meeting, I guess. Hence the bitching boss"

"A meeting on Sunday?" that sounded just too crazy to be true.

"Desperate times and busy schedules" Tony muttered grimly and tightened his crossed arms over his chest in some way of self-defence.

Now Steve had a vague idea of why Tony hadn't been on his StarkPhone, and why the screen read fourteen missed calls, four voice mails and twelve new texts.

"You'd really need to answer your phone" Steve tried a softer tone – the one his mother tried several times when Bucky was being stubborn and Steve reached his wits' ends to convince his friend about going back to school when a teacher was being mean to him for no reason.

"I certainly don't" Tony scoffed and pouted "She's just pissed because I don't do anything as she commands. I'm not her puppy or anything"

"But she is important to you, not to mention your boss, and you have a job to do. You just said so"

"Yes, true, true and also true, and I also said that, but let me ask you something. How is your genius project going?" Tony's tone was sharp and it kind of stung, and it must have been quite obvious from Steve's face, because Tony went on "Exactly. So that's the same with inventing. It doesn't work on command. I can't come up with something brilliant just because Pepper says so. And it also doesn't count that she's keeping me alive"

So Tony was playing stubborn, and the only person in the universe who could deal with him (according to some hinted information from Peter) was blacklisted because of some reasons. _All cool, Steve, you can handle a fussy kid. let's see – Why are kids fussy? Remember, come on, you were asked to look after the neighbour's kid for a day, you should remember… They are fussy, because they haven't had their afternoon nap. Good. Now check. Tony and sleeping. Has he had his nap? Definitely not. All good! Problem solved._

Or not entirely. How to get probably insomniac Tony Stark to go to sleep?

"Umm, Tony, listen" Steve started carefully – _Come on, Steve, you're all cool. You can do it. _"I think you really just need to get some sleep. You know… you see things from a different point of view when you're well rested"

Steve levelled Tony with a wary look. Is he going to leash out on Steve because he's playing mother hen at him again, or will he have to go through the same torture as getting little Travis into bed a year ago? Because he's surely not desperate enough to offer a bedtime story, not to mention –

"Okay"

"What?" Steve stared at Tony with huge round confused blue eyes.

"I said okay" Tony repeated.

Steve couldn't decide if the small faint glint in his eyes was for amusement and teasing or the same confusion that was climbing up Steve's throat. Were they talking about the same thing?

"I mean, I certainly need some sleep, Jarvis and Pepper and hell, even Rhodey and Happy have been nagging me with that, but if it's an implication to get the hell out of here and leave you alone, than that can be arranged too-"

"Haven't we covered the 'don't be stupid' topic last time?" Steve said trying and failing to sound not too exasperated.

Steve caught glance of Tony's posture changing back to provocative- self-defensive and quickly went on before he'd really have to fetch more energy into this whole thing than he felt like.

"All I meant was I'll offer my bed for you to take a nap, and wake up as a normal human being" Steve offered finally.

"I'm everything but normal, darling, so would you risk the failure of your project?" Tony scoffed, but Steve noted satisfied that his shoulders slumped slightly again. There, he was doing good getting Tony into his bed…

…

Damn. DON'T! Don't even go there. Nope. Not the slightest.

"Yeah. Sure. I'm an optimistic type of guy" Steve shrugged, hopefully as nonchalant as he intended.

"Some things never change" Tony uttered softly.

No, it didn't make Steve's heart flutter. Not the slightest bit.

"So. Bed?" and that smirk was luckily too tired and wavery at the edges to get him flushed.

"Yeah. I'd get you new sheets-"

"Don't worry, Steve" Tony took pity on him and waved him off. "The last times I've slept were in offices and in my workshop hunched over a bench, so anything horizontal would be like heaven. I swear, even your floor looks appealing"

With that Tony winked at him and before he could look too expectant Steve led him to his room, just to check if he left any of his sketchbooks lying around in the corner of his bed or something. But he couldn't fail to notice the edge of a blue circle from days before more or less hidden under Tony's tie.

Must be some kind of a vintage thing Steve assumed. Not that such thing would stop his realization from bugging his mind.

* * *

After the doorbell rang Steve wasn't far away from tearing the door open and he literally had to restrain himself from doing so and looking too eager like a teenage girl or her prom night waiting for her date, who just miraculously happens to be her greatest crush.

He had been working himself up to unbelievable heights of anxiety and giddiness, worrying that Bucky might have changed much, that he wouldn't be the same person anymore after so many years spent in the war zone. Steve remembered he took a long time to accomodate himself back to normal society "just" after four years of service. Then what about Bucky who stayed even longer?

However, as soon as he opened the door all his fears were blown away. Because the only thing that maybe changed on Bucky was his tan. It got a bit darker. But it could have been due to the poorly lit corridor. It was hard to tell. Bucky's eyes gleamed all the same with mischief and anticipation about seeing his best friend again, and also with the same macho-flavoured kindness that came from the old times when Steve had been small and sickly. The admiration was all gone now that they were both off military, but Steve didn't miss that the slightest bit. He didn't like remembering those times that earned him that strange glint in the other's eyes.

Bucky was well shaven and as handsome as ever – he couldn't sleep off all the weariness yet, but it happens, and anyway, Steve's recent guests hadn't been all that well-rested either, so it didn't count. There was also the unavoidable leather jacket – no matter how much they both hated the cold, Steve and Bucky wore leather jackets until they were blue in the mouth and shivering to the bones for days after they had been out and couldn't take it any longer. It was an old habit Steve picked up from Bucky still from the time when he adored the guy like his missing father-figure or big brother. Then it just became a friendly thing they both shared.

With a crooked smirk on his face Bucky thrust his right hand with his usual bravado, one eyebrow slightly arching in challenge – but Steve decided he was passed taking his friend's shit even at this early stage, he had been through this with Tony already, though on quite a different level – he grabbed his hand and squeezed with such enthusiasm that it got even the soldier close to wince, but still with the same swung Steve pulled Bucky to his chest, hugging the slightly shorter man tightly.

He was taking up the habit of hugging his best – long-time-haven't-seen – friends on his doorstep.

* * *

Bucky was hungry.

Well, that shouldn't be so surprising, but in all honesty Steve'd expected Bucky to have had breakfast just before he dropped by. He had always been like that. While for Steve it was a miracle if he slept longer than seven, when not on duty, Bucky pretty much liked sleeping in. Sometimes through the whole day, especially during the first week they were home.

"I've eaten, mom, there's just been a fuck-up and was called in for another fucking-boring debrief" Bucky explained, expression dark and definitely murderous. "I swear they want to kill me. They are pissed that I forgot to turn up my toes in the desert…"

Bucky went on fuming about his superiors, especially the ones working in the bureau and never had held a gun in their hands, not to mention made a field-trip to war-zone while Steve played the nice host and made him his second breakfast and brew a pot of coffee.

"Man, you'd never believe what a hustle there had been for the past weeks" Bucky grinned.

The whole base was a mess; nobody knew where their heads were – according to Bucky. Not just because of the anticipation of the first news of withdrawal, but also because the unbelievable miracle happened that the Stark-name had been flying about the base, and at first no one knew _why_. There were rumours that Stark finally had given in, and was making weapons again to aid finishing this fucked-up-drawn-out-too-long war, and a good part of the officers were delirious. Sort of. They all hated the Hammer guns.

"You actually missed a poor kid – in my unit! Damn, of course it had to be in mine! – he was barely out boot-camp, I don't even know how he got there, it wasn't even our unit, I was reassigned – whatever – so the poor bastard shot himself in the knee"

"Auch" Steve winced. Well, that wasn't that uncommon if someone wanted a way out military, but based on the context it wasn't the case.

"Hell, yeah. He was a stripling newbee, but not stupid. The gun wasn't uncocked"

"Maybe he just forgot it"

"He fucking didn't. I gave him an earful the morning about uncocking your gun, and he'sn't stupid"

Well, that sounded acceptable. Having Bucky give you an earful of what a shitty bag of crap looser you were wasn't something you forgot easily. The kid would uncock his gun for the rest of his life. It was a miracle he still cocked it in the first place.

"They gave us guns that weren't secure! In a _war_!"

Well, Steve had his own experience with all the fuss the weapons brought to the field. Your life depended on them, and if you couldn't rely on your weapons… then you were as good as dead. So it was obvious that a good part of the bigheads were delighted that reliable and effective weapons might be coming back to field. So that they finally could relax and not worry about the well-being of their soldiers at least during the rare periods of cease-fire and no missions.

"So what was the case?" Steve sounded really curious now. He guessed it wasn't the case that Stark Industries started arm-manufacturing again. The interview from two weeks ago was clear proof for that.

It turned out that SI hadn't cut all ties with the military after all. And even though they were no more weapon shipping (all from stores had been dismantled or destroyed as far as Bucky's information went) there were other means, like planes and helipads being created. They were still in more or less test phase and not in big quantity at all, but they were proven useful. Faster and lighter than all the others (there were no guns to slow them with the extra weight) and even the bigger planes that were sent there to assist the withdrawal and transport of the soldiers were "really cool".

"I don't know what's gotten into Stark, and how did I end up as the luckiest for travelling on those babies among the firsts, but I'm quite grateful" Bucky was stirring his second cup of coffee by this time and wolfing down the remains of sausages and scrambled eggs Steve had made him.

"You could thank him" Steve offered with a soft smile, and created a mental note to ask Tony about Bucky's miraculous return later.

"Yeah" Bucky drawled all sarcastic "The guy clearly gives a shit about soldiers' love letters. Have you ever heard of Stark, Steve, I'm honestly wondering?"

"Actually yes. I have him in my bed" Steve wanted to bite off and swallow his tongue the minute the words left his mouth.

Bucky stared at him as if he had just told him he kept an alligator in the tub.

"You've got Tony Stark, asshole of the universe in your bed?!"

That's it. The gratitude went only as far as Bucky was like a whole solar-galaxy away from the need to express it.

Steve noted with a wince to store this squeak for later blackmailing.

"Well, not anymore" came Tony's drowsy voice from the doorway. "You're impossible to sleep next to"

On the first whim Tony made a beeline towards the coffeepot and immediately took claim of the whole thing before settling on the last empty chair at the table glaring at Bucky from under heavy lidded sleepy eyes and hugging the pot close to his chest all possessive and oh so childish.

Steve took pity on him, and because he was afraid Tony'd pour all the coffee down his front by accident if he tried to drink from the pot, he stood to fetch a mug for him.

"Why do you look so familiar?" Bucky asked with narrowed eyes as he glared at Tony.

Steve couldn't really blame his friend for the hostile impulse. He felt the same after all until he recognized that this cocky idiot was the same person as his long-lost friend. Well, Tony wasn't making any effort to get into Bucky's good graces either.

"I don't know. I'm often on magazine covers." Tony glared back. "Though probably not on the ones you were reading"

"No. I think those are saved up for you. I wouldn't put it past you to be able to jerk off only for your own glorious face"

Tony's eyes narrowed to malicious slits before opening up again and a dry chuckle erupted from his chest.

"Unlike you, sergeant jerk, I don't _need_ to jerk off"

Before Bucky could retort and things could accelerate too quickly into a fight Steve decided it was time to intervene in the Alpha-match. Seriously, what was his life?

"Guys, guys please. Try not to kill each other"

"But I don't like the brat, Steve" Bucky whined.

"Yeah, me either. You have one friend of an asshole. That hasn't changed"

Now Steve felt like the mother of two petulant children who were too eager to pick a fight because of no reasons and then just pouted at each other.

"Seems like the only type of friends I have" Steve retorted dryly. "Bucky, you surely remember Tony, who lived with me and mom during third grade?"

"You must be fucking joking, man! This asshole?"

"Bucky!"

"I've never liked him. In case, I've always hated him" Bucky groaned, his grip on the fork tightening.

"The feeling's mutual" Tony muttered.

"I'm sure this is why he got back in the first place from Afghanistan on a Stark-plane" Steve remarked, the puzzle pieces coming closer and some of them falling in place. Now Steve was slightly more amused as Tony shot him a dark look.

"I'm already regretting that decision"

"How on earth did you manage that?" Steve grabbed the opportunity to prod a still half-asleep and so hopefully more willing to reveal some of his secrets Tony Stark for answers.

"I was just going through the enlisted names in Afghanistan, spotted the bastard, felt a bit nostalgic and pulled some strings. I have connections, you know"

"I might hate you a little less, but I still hate you" Bucky said. He looked genuinely surprised and maybe a bit moved – but even Steve couldn't say it for sure, that Tony might really have a philanthropic side of his nature.

"I still hate you all the same" Tony answered the heat of the argument gone. For some undisclosed time.

"It's not nice to hate someone for no real reason, Tony" Steve scolded as he watched Tony pouring his second cup of coffee.

"See, this is why it's awesome to be me" Tony downed his coffee and already poured the third one. Steve didn't even know he'd made so much. "I can hate people because they exist. And they pretty much can hate me because I exist. So simple and awesome"

"Surely it's great in some universe"

"And it sucks to be you, because you can't hate people no matter what an asshole they are"

"Like you" Bucky jabbed in with a malicious glare.

"Or you" Tony returned with the same expression.

"Uh-humm" Steve steered the attention back to himself before the two were barring teeth. "Still, coffee doesn't count for breakfast the last time I checked"

"Steve, not you too" Tony whined miserably and dropped his forehead on his folded arms, pressing his temple to the side of his warm mug.

"Yeah, come on, Steve. Let the brat starve to death. Nobody would miss him. I certainly won't shed a tear for him"

"That's the spirit, Barnes! And next time I'll just let you rot away in the Afghan desert, because I certainly won't miss you either"

These two – currently too embedded in a glaring match – are going to be the death of him in the near future…

Before Steve could realize it, Tony was off the table, strolling nonchalantly into the living room asking "Baby, how many missed calls do I have?" over his shoulder, and Bucky was close to snap his fork in two, his knuckles white, while sneering about Tony being a jackass, and certainly remembering his flirtatious insufferable ass from years back.

Not waiting for Steve's answer of "I don't know, it's been flashing most of the time" Tony exclaimed in surprise and some uncharacteristic childish excitement mixed up with a frown – how he pulled it out, never ask – and re-emerged in the kitchen with Steve's dark and mute StarkPhone in hand.

Tony carelessly tossed his on the table, and devoted all his attention to Steve's device.

"How's it working?" He asked with giddy anticipation.

"It's not" Steve admitted on a low shy voice. Now Tony would realize what a real catastrophe he is and lose interest in him. The thought left him chilled out cold. "I can't turn it on" Steve dropped his head low. He couldn't explain all these awkward feelings rushing him all of a sudden, but he really felt like a child just about to get scolded and then left behind.

"Did you read my note?" Tony asked, tone suspiciously neutral, and Steve felt the strong desire to shrink and disappear wash through him.

Steve nodded.

He only dared to risk a glance up in the outstretching silence. Bucky decided it was better to return to his cooling breakfast and the only thing that suggested he acknowledged Tony's presence was the heated dark aura surrounding him. While Tony on the other hand didn't look angry at all, as Steve had feared. His frown was directed at the phone, turning it among his nimble fingers, staring at it with an expression that said 'you're misfunctioning for some reason, I'm very disappointed in you, and I'm going to fix you'. Steve wondered slightly why the poor device hadn't turned on by pure shame and terror.

"I don't know what's the problem then" Tony murmured, then without averting his intense glaze from the tech, he extended his hand toward Steve "I need your hand" He stated it so matter of factly and without the usual flirtation that _it _made Steve blush and even Bucky dared a curious glance.

Tony took Steve's hand, put the phone in his palm, organizing his fingers over the edge and then tightened his grip on them just to press on all sides of the phone. There was a long moment of silence, before Tony huffed, his hand slipping away from Steve's, but stealing the phone back first, the other carding through his sleep-mussed hair – an obvious sign of irritation.

"I don't know why it doesn't work. It was totally fine on guns"

"GUNS?!"

"Yeah. The surface of the handle would recognize your palm print and only you could use it" Tony answered as if on autopilot on a distant tone, his hand flashing out and stealing Bucky's knife. For a bare second horror froze Steve's mind, because he saw the look that crossed Bucky's face, and knew if the soldier hadn't had such practiced self-control, Tony would be missing a hand.

However, the genius in question was obliviously prodding at the cover of the phone with the edge of the knife.

"Like in James Bond?" Bucky asked – his tone strained and shoulders tense – he obviously needed something to distract himself from the instinct that was barely fading from him. "I thought that was still fictional"

"Nope. I've created it years before Skyfall, just didn't have time to put it on market"

"Maybe you should think about it" Steve said.

Tony tensed up and sent a glare so cold at Steve it froze the blood in his veins.

"I don't make any more weapons, Rogers"

"Maybe you should consider this one"

Bucky had no idea how grateful Steve was that Tony's hostile icy glare turned away from him and pinned Bucky instead to his seat. But Bucky apparently had a better hold of himself, because he met Tony's glare with his cool steady gaze.

"If gun-use could be restrained only for those who buy it and have the right to ownership, a lot of accidents could be avoided. Like stupid drunk kids thinking it's fun to play around with daddy's rifle and then shooting each other dead"

"The only thing that would solve the problem is not to make and sell weapons at all, but we all know that's going to happen sooner in North Korea than here in our precious US" Tony's tone was surprisingly calm, even, if cold and cruel, his eyes empty and dark. A perfect match for Bucky's.

Steve had to admit, he was terrified – even if the slightest bit. he felt something stir deep inside. Something from the war that he wanted to bury desperately. Something very similar to the expression on Bucky's blank and winter cold features.

"But it could at least cut back on the amount of deaths, happening out there" and here Bucky didn't only mean the amount of crime, but also the wars – just remembering the poor lad he mentioned barely half an hour ago.

"Too expensive" Tony pulled the edge of his lips up in a cold sneer. "Why should we care for junkies and drunkards if the use of such tech wouldn't even return?"

Before the heavy blanket of tension brought up by the topic could settle on them Tony's phone flashed and went into a crazy buzzy dance on the table and the atmosphere was back as if the guns hadn't even been mentioned.

With an irritated huff Tony tossed the obnoxious device in Bucky's big mug of coffee.

"HEY!" the soldier yelped and Steve saw the fork turn in his hand, just a second away from stabbing it into the billionaire's hand for ruining his precious beverage, which he needed at least as much as Tony before noon.

"Tony, I'm not sure it's good for your phone" Steve interjected before Bucky's vision was irreversibly filled with red, the seriousness and coldness of a soldier blown away, and also sent him a warning look just to be sure his two friends weren't killing each other in his kitchen.

Okay that the bantering was better than the looming topic of arms and deaths, but only until his flat didn't turn into a fighting scene that is.

"If it won't survive, I'm taking a nosedive from the nearest skyscraper" Tony mumbled irritated, the instant threat of Bucky's anger forgotten, totally indulged again in the problem of dismantling Steve's misfunctioning phone with the knife.

"I thought you went for bridges" Bucky stabbed in, and only glared back at Steve when the blond looked at him with disappointment.

"They aren't tall enough"

"Smartass"

"Jerk"

"Spoilt brat"

"Pest"

And in the next few minutes Steve's swear-word-vocabulary got a massive update just in case he ever needed them. He was suspicious that at some point there were some French and Russian inserted as well and some others he couldn't actually identify.

"Why don't you simply turn it off?" Bucky asked, voice eventually closer to amused after they more or less let out some steam after the phone buzzed again, stirring Bucky's coffee.

"Because I don't know the PIN code" Tony snarled as he directed a murderous glare at the device.

"Seriously? And you call yourself a genius?"

"I _am_, but _Pepper_ changed the code and I forgot to ask, and it would take an hour to crack it. And I just _refuse _to hack my own damn phone"

"Then why don't you simply ask her?" Bucky said teasing and levelled Tony with a pitiful look. As if it was the easiest thing on earth.

"The woman I'm trying to avoid?" Tony pulled the right side of his mouth into a disbelieving smirk.

Wasn't it precious that the two were looking at each other, radiating with the pitiful opinion of _Idiot_, when they thought themselves so much higher than the other? Steve really didn't know if he should laugh or try to freeze time and make a headstart for his sketchpad.

"She's gonna need your sorry ass sooner or later. She's gonna tell"

"Have you ever had a girlfriend, Barnes?"

_That_ was the moment when Bucky's eyes narrowed and it didn't take to be a mindreader to know that the countdown for Tony's unexpired seconds had started. Tony just booked himself a straight way to the cemetery. If Bucky leaves something of him to be buried – that is.

"Because then you should know what vengeful creatures women are"

"Maybe with you they are" Bucky leaned back in his chair smugly crossing his arms over his chest "but I'm too handsome for that"

Steve felt a strong urge to facepalm over such argument.

"Oh, darling, you think being handsome protects you from revenge?" Tony cooed and stopped his tinkering to lean his own elbows on the table mirroring Bucky's smugness.

"Well, I surely have been doing something better than you, brat. Don't worry much, when you get the eggshell off your pretty ass maybe I could give you a crash course in handling ladies"

Neither Tony challenged Bucky's self-declaration of being so handsome, nor Bucky's opinion on his ass. Dear Lord… Steve had a basic idea where the conversation was going…

"Does it include practical demonstration of your personal charm?" Tony leaned even closer to Bucky over the table, challenge sparkling in his eyes and at the edge of his smirk.

"Maybe I'd be generous and pick you for that" Bucky answered with the same cocky air radiating from him and taking up the same posture, their faces not too far apart and Steve couldn't decide if that was worrying or not.

"Um, guys – I'd say to get a room, but since it's my home, could you leave it for a bit later?" Steve asked looking irritated and was very proud of himself that he hadn't flushed – until both men turned their mischievously gleaming darkened eyes and cocky smirks at him –

Of course both devils noticed his reaction. They glanced at each other from the corner of their eyes with a wolfish grin.

Steve knew immediately that he was going to regret it.

"Why, Steve honey, feeling jealous?" Tony cooed sweetly.

"Or left out?" Bucky was quick to add.

Steve sent them a dirty glare and pushed himself up from the table, his cheeks on fire.

"You know what? Do whatever you want. I have some work to do"

"But we dun' wanna leave you out" Came the teasing whine in sync.

But Steve had been mastering his glares while these two hadn't been around. However, that only resulted in them snickering loudly.

Before Steve could turn to leave the kitchen fuming for Tony and Bucky to go back and hopefully kill each other the way they want, a warm and calloused hand caught his wrist. The laughter that shook the hand belonged to Tony.

"Don't take it seriously, Cap, or you're never gonna survive us" Tony laughed – that warm, honest laugh that was so rare hearing from him. "Besides, I'm the one who has to go, or Pep's really going to end me."

"No one's gonna miss you, brat" Bucky piped in as good-naturally as he had been treating Tony from second -1, just less hostile. "But if that means I can get rid of you, then please, stay a bit longer, I'll make this sacrifice"

"I love you too, Barnes" Tony fluttered his too-long eyelashes at Bucky before turning back to Steve rising to his feet himself. "I'll send you another phone, that's actually functioning. I suppose I have a meeting to fix it. Don't bother I'll see myself out"

* * *

**A/N: **Tony just doesn't know how to shut up. If I wasn't so pathologically uncapable of killing characters I love, I'd be afraid Bucky would kill him soon...

**A/N.2:** I'm about to feel that my portrayal of Steve it pathetic. Like he's always blushing, which is cute, but hey! he was a soldier and all… and in this one he's acting as a mother, with which I'm absolutely comfortable with, but I can't shrug away the feeling that I'm making him too vulnerable. Especially after the scene when Tony freezes and calls him Rogers. I mean, it's totally fine in my head, if you consider that he's very nice and open and kind to his friends, accepting Tony back as if nothing had happened and he hadn't gone through one hell of processing the possible suicide of his friend (jeez, is it a spoiler? I hope not! please, forget this if it is!), and then without any warning he is faced with such coldness and hostility… If it had been only him without Bucky, I guess there would be a fight, because he wouldn't swallow everything just like I would… but yeah. This part has Bucky in so…

**A/N.3: **I'm noting too much -.- So this would be the story for a good while, sorry guys! I have a lot of things to attend and a Frostiron fic to write with actual deadline, and I still have to organize where I could go abroad for the summer and these chapters as much fun they are, are getting too long and out of hand. So I can't promise when there'll be another update.

**Please let me know what you think, if I'm doing something good or wrong! your intakes on the story had been very precious to me so far! **I also have a few of your reviews on notes on my desktop :)

**Thank you very much! you're awesome! I don't deserve you! But I LOVE you even more!**


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N:** Uhh... what can I say... sorry that it took me nearly two months to update. I'll try to make it up to those who are still reading me. This chapter is a small glimpse of how impossible Steve's situation is with his two best friends.

It looks so much friendlier as a Word doc ^^;

* * *

**Sketches**

**~11~**

~*You're going to be the death of me*~

* * *

"I can't believe it. You two barely know each other for what?-"

"Depends, Steve. From first meeting or how much time we've spent together?"

"Doesn't matter."

"Well then, two days, or half an hour-"

"22 minutes."

"Shut up nerd."

"Sure thing Sergeant Jerk."

"Get the eggshell off your ass first, punk."

"O-kay, so half an hour and you two already made it your mission to make my life miserable."

And the sad thing was that Steve wasn't even exaggerating. It seemed to be the only thing Tony and Bucky was on the same wavelength with and when they grew tired of killing each other – seriously, Steve finally knew why he had never considered becoming a teacher and why he had had enough of babysitting. Tony and Bucky – though separated might as well act like "normal" adults now and then by miracle, but together… They both were de-aged to like five. Eight tops. Just because that was the age when they picked at each other _all the time_, but also started conspiring against the one overlooking them. Which was Steve.

"Shit, Barnes, how did he break our Enigma-encripted secret so quick?"

"I told you he was smart, you just never listen to me, boasting about you genius. Clearly you are just a lunatic dumbass. So we need another code."

"Definitely."

"Meeting at headquarters in 4?"

"Sssh, Idiot! If we have to look for another HQ I'll strangle you," Tony glared at Bucky then winked. Bucky grinned back and tapped the side of his nose knowingly.

In exact four minutes both of them vanished. And actually managed to keep quiet and not spring at each other for two exact more minutes. Then they just tumbled out of Steve's closet scaring the poor man for life.

* * *

Even though Steve was overjoyed that he got back two of his best friends nearly at the same time, it was making just this close to impossible to get his project done. And unfortunately the deadline was nearing at an unforgiving pace. The date already gloated at him circled with red marker in his calendar.

Steve wondered why everyone was gravitating to his small home, when obviously Tony and Bucky both had better apartments. God, he didn't even want to really think about where Tony might live, and definitely why he liked lounging around in the Rogers estate so much. He already knew where Bucky lived, his friend had invited Steve for gatherings and "man-to-man" talks regularly when he was in the mood. On the other hand Bucky called the spacious, well-lit and well-equipped apartment 'home' just a bit more often than Tony (which was actually never). He'd always preferred living with Steve, because it filled him with warmth of the illusion that he had a nice family.

However, the close proximity brought along Bucky's whining about boredom and that Steve wasn't paying attention to him and what was he even doing back in NY when his life had been so much more exciting with his unit. He didn't mean it of course, and Steve knew it very well but Bucky had known him long enough to mercilessly have his manipulative ways with the poor good-hearted blond.

So it was a real relief when his phone went off (repaired and returned the same afternoon when it left in Tony's pocket), interrupting Bucky's actual rant and sending him into a chain of curses over the AC/DC ringtone.

"Hey! Someone let me in, my hand is burning," Tony's cheerful tone cut through to Steve.

"So be it. You can always use the other when lonely."

Steve grunted and shot a glare at his best friend, and Tony just sneered on the other side of the line.

"Sure thing. Hey cupcake, do you think you can devour one and a half extra big extra delicious pizza?"

Bucky was out the room in a second - he had been bitching about being hungry, even though they had just eaten two hours ago, but hey, _**men**_. Before Steve could even rise from his chair he heard the muffled voices of wrestling from the corridor then the slam of the door, and Tony came rushing into his room, pushing two huge warm pizza boxes in Steve's lap with "hold them will ya?" wink and just after Bucky slid into the room Tony dodged him and with manic clatter ran to the living room with the third box held high in his hands.

Steve just gaped after the two. Seriously? Grown men? Not even if the world came crushing down.

"Ya don' dare to fuck with me, Stark!"

"Come on Barnes, what is military nowadays?"

"I'll fry your ass!"

"Ya gotta catch me first!"

The yells accelerated in volume and decreased in making any sense and Steve decided it was high time he checked on his kindergardeners when the yelps were replaced by thumps and grunts, and he started to feel worried about Tony's well being. Because - you know – Tony with his big cocky mouth he could never shut and Bucky being a soldier and the temper...

He was more than used to separating the two when Bucky's tolerance reached its end like four years in advance and were at each other's necks, but now he just couldn't decide if he should gasp in horror or laugh hysterically or just turn away and pretend he hadn't seen anything.

Right that moment Bucky was straddling Tony's back, holding the billionaire in a deadly choke hold snarling close to his ear with a manic glint in his bright eyes, while Tony was desperately tapping away, _he gave up, he gave up, now air, pretty damn please!_

The neighbours definitely didn't like how the boys picked their way of showing affection, because the end of the broom ratted frantically from the other side of the floor.

Bucky let Tony go, who took some deep breaths then just shoved Bucky to the ground and the two went back to killing each other even louder.

The pizza box lay forgotten under the couch.

* * *

„Hey, Tony, this is Steve-"

"Oh, hey, sweet cheeks. Sorry. Haven't seen your ID."

Tony's voice sounded strangely muffled and there was some clattering and whirring noise in the background which Steve couldn't really identify.

"Umm, where are you?" he asked hesitantly. Well, it sort of would have been his main question, but now it felt odd. Like a mother checking in on his little, immature kid.

"Under the hood, dismantling my newest car."

So this is why his voice was off. The other question was how they could speak at all, since Steve assumed Tony'd need both of his hands in the process and wouldn't wear a hands-off just in case his long-lost friend called. Especially since Tony's most recent caller was his boss and best friend, Pepper Potts (Steve got slowly but steadily updated on the billionaire – courtesy of Peter). And Tony was the type of guy who would if he could get away with not answering his superior any given time and beyond. Even if he owned the said company. So whatever.

Steve didn't even want to question the _newest car_ part.

"Okay. But do you really have to do that?"

"I want to make her faster. These cars are dull, and have so many mistakes I wouldn't reach the end of the list by morning – Come on, rusty baby, cooperate a bit!"

"If you say so," Steve drew out and waited patiently a few minutes until Tony stopped his growling argument with the engine of his car. "Anyway I called, because we're going out for a beer with Bucky, and I wondered if you wanted to join us?"

"Thanks, baby, but you'll have to survive without my glorious company," Tony answered and Steve could hear the smirk in his voice.

"I'm sure your car would wait for you."

"Oh, no doubt. She can't really go anywhere without her engine. However-"

Tony was interrupted by the unmistakeable sound of something blowing up. On a very nasty way if Steve had to deduce from the sound and Tony's curse.

"Jesus, fuck, Dum-E! What now?" Tony exclaimed and Steve could picture him with his hands on his hips glowering at anything that dared to go off.

There was a chirping and whirring sound that Steve would risk to call– guilty?

"No, no, you won't get away with it! It was my second coffee machine this weekend!"

Long-drawn chirping and shuffling again.

"I swear you ruin one more and I turn you into a wine-rack."

One high-pitched panicked beep.

"I'm being serious. No moving, no disaster! You're hopeless, Dum-E. Shoo! Off to your corner! No- Don't even touch that mess, you'll blow up my whole workshop one day. Off the corner! You're grounded."

Sad, fading chirping.

"Seriously, one would think he's jealous or something."

Steve couldn't withhold it anymore, he burst out laughing. To that Tony let out a yelp of surprise that made Steve double over with laughter even more.

"Sorry, sorry." Steve apologized half-heartedly while clutching at his middle to regain his breath. "Who were you talking to?"

"One idiot of an AI-Bot I have down here," Tony huffed out, and Steve knew he was carding his hands through his hair, making it even messier, and the more he did it the more the stress lifted off his shoulders.

"Dummy."

"Correct. His name is very suitable for him. You met a few of his in-progress compartments. I was working on updating him as much as I could when I was crashing at you. Despite being called an artificial intelligence, well…He's a disaster – Yes, I'm talking about you. Now switch yourself off, Daddy's pissed – A real update is long overdue if you ask me."

Steve could picture the contemplating frown on Tony's brows.

"How long exactly?" Steve was sure Tony could hear the bright smile in his voice. It was so much like you talk to your beloved pet or your annoying kid. To be honest, at first he thought, Tony had a dog and he was talking to it. Not a robot.

"Ever since I made him for the science fair at uni."

Steve couldn't help the fond smile that settled on his lips. So it meant Tony wasn't going to change the poor thing. He was meant to be so – disastrous.

"So back to our subject – you know before my overly-suspiciously-jealous Dum-bot destroyed my precious coffee machine -"

"Yes. So can you come?"

"Still nope, and still sorry. As I was about to say, I'm a few states away. I got fed up with that shitty weather and went for a spin to Malibu."

"You're on the other coast… but you just dropped by yesterday."

"Well, I'm actually living here. I have my house, quite fancy, and rebuilt after I had a minor accident here a few months ago, and I'm only residing at a penthouse in NY when it's really necessary for business. If I could, I wouldn't go back until spring, but I have a harpy of a boss, so I have to drag my ass back there for Monday."

So Tony wasn't even living in New York. They only met because he had a lot of work to do, and as soon as his projects are done, he's going to move away.

Far away from Steve.

The clench of his guts was definitely because he had been eating quite irregularly nowadays.

"Oh. Um. Okay. Maybe- maybe next week?"

"Depends. Are you inviting me on a date?"

Steve was about to miss this part of their conversation. Things never seem to go easy for him. It took Steve a while to get over his coughing fit and ignore the heat crawling down his neck.

"No. Not really. Just, you know. Bucky is the going-out type, and I don't think I can hold up with him so long, and you seemed to be fine not really killing each other, and since he'll surely want to go out to party, I thought maybe you'd come too. I'm not really comfortable with – that."

"Despite the amazing rambling-explanation you threw my way, Captain, this sounds like a date." Why was Tony so calm about making Steve's life miserable? Is it seriously the only kind of friends he got? All teasing and – well, if Tony was serious about it, then it would be an entirely different story, but only this flirting…

Steve shut this thought down in record time.

"If Pepper doesn't throw some gala my way for next Friday, I'm totally in." Tony took mercy on the long silence from Steve's part. "You'll see, you haven't really been on a party until you partied with me."

* * *

**A/N: **Oh hey, it seems like something's going to happen? O.O wow~ But it won't happen until two chapters from now because I'm lazy and impossible... sorry, don't hurt me! I'll try and make it look like as if it's heading somewhere I promise!


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: Two chapters in one day...** wow :D

Have some Rhodey in this one ^^

* * *

**Sketches**

~12~

~*Surprise, surprise*~

* * *

Steve thought he wouldn't see much of Tony the next week until Friday. He seemed very busy and even though Tony seemed to take his job lightly, Pepper on the other hand tried to get him as much done as barely didn't kill him. So it was a huge surprise when one early morning, they weren't even officially open he found himself face to face with a grumpy, not yet fully awake Tony Stark at the café.

At first Tony didn't recognize him just mumbled his order (two triple espresso, no milk, no sugar) and his eyes didn't open up until he caught scent of his precious beverage. Then his eyes rounded comically big and just stared back at Steve (who didn't rub the back of his neck in his usual sheepish manner because both of his hands were taken by Tony's order). As soon as his genius mind got over the shortage Tony lit up into a bright grin and they chatted (Tony tried to flirt with Steve – his usual mode for talking) until the customers couldn't take up with the fact that Tony Stark was standing in front of them in line, they were in a hurry too.

For some reason Steve hadn't had a better Monday at work, even though he had to do most of it alone because Peter was out on some kind of school trip, and at home Steve just fell in bed half-dead, yet his heart felt light and he still found it in himself to smile.

* * *

In all honesty Steve was surprised that he was so lucky that he bumped into Tony again. At the café non the less. It was just nice. Nice and filled Steve with warmth and looking for the times the billionaire sauntered into the shop. Even despite the rushes that Tony seemed to drag along himself wherever he entered Steve fell into bed with a content smile all the time, saving his project for those days he didn't have a shift to work.

There were these crazy days at the café, and not just those crazy days when Peter thought – more likely didn't think at all – that it was a good idea to bring one of his more instable than stable school projects to his working place. Steve had to give him lecture after lecture about accidentally blowing up coffee mugs and bags of coffee beans.

Steve finally grew out of the role of being Bucky's little brother and he just got one himself.

However, now it was again the Tony type of crazy. Steve didn't expect the billionaire to saunter back into the little café shop ever again (hope and expectation are two entirely different things), not to mention this week when he was supposed to be buried under tons of work. But here he was with a tall Major at his side.

"Hey cupcake, how's it going?" Tony called out just after entering the shop not even caring to take his sunglasses off now inside.

"Hello Tony," Steve smiled but couldn't help himself to stand at attention – for the great amusement of the Major when he looked Steve over from head to hip (as much as the counter allowed). "What can I get you?" he managed to swallow the sir. Military was fading in small parts after all.

A muffled yelp registered in the back of Steve's mind along with the horrible clinking of shivering glasses and utensils on a tray. He quickly sent a warning glare at Peter to indicate that the other guests were waiting, pull himself together!

Surprisingly Tony missed the minor freak out of his number one fan. It was surprising because Tony seemed to have a sixth sense that tingled every time he was in danger of having to be nice with fans. For the record he seemed quite miserable and dead on his feet, even though the smart suit and the reddish shades hid it well. When Steve turned back to them Tony wasn't any more responsive – they shared and exaggerated glance with the Major, who poked Tony unceremoniously in the ribs earning a nasty glare.

The Major sighed, "An Espresso for me and something ridiculously expensive and sweet for him with so much caffeine it'd kill any less idiotic human."

"You're always so sweet to me I might just have you," Tony retorted but the man just shot him an unamused look to Tony's greatest dismay.

"Alright," Steve smiled, it came easy to him on these days. "It might take some time, please take a seat."

"Thank you, but we'd rather –"

"Thanks darling we'll be just over there," Tony cut in and waved at the small table in the corner at the window.

Steve could still hear the protests of the Major as Tony pushed the larger man toward the table.

"We don't have time for you to pick up your boyfriend, Tony –"

_Boyfriend..?_

"Come on, Rhodey, we haven't had coffee together for ages. We still have 30 minutes and I'm also willing to start our super secret negotiations here."

"We do those in closed offices for a reason—"

Tony just scoffed and laughed at it good naturedly.

"Man this is Tony Stark!" Peter appeared suddenly at his elbow and Steve nearly knocked him out with the mug in his hand. Subsiding instincts…

"And Major must be him. Man, I'm so excited. I so need to tweet this – I'm shivering – am I shivering? God! How am I going to serve like this? I'll spill everything –"

Steve stood up from his crouch with a sigh putting some extra sweet chocolate syrup on the counter and placed his hand on Peter's shoulder. The boy was really trembling with tension.

"Peter if it's such a big thing for you, you can go up to him. I'm sure Tony'll answer you whatever you want from him."

Peter looked a strange mixture between flabbergasted that Steve didn't feel for him meeting his idol – or whatever Tony was for him – and super excited. If it could go any higher. The later won obviously and all giddish and bouncing on his feet Peter looked longing in the direction of Tony and his companion.

It was just that moment when Tony pocketed his pen he was poking the Major with along with his Aviators and went to the showcase of biscuits eying them curiously. Steve nudged Peter in the side.

"Come on, serve him, you can chat with him a bit that way."

Peter looked like a deer caught in the headlights. First all colour drained from his face then he flushed an even brighter shade of red than Steve did when Tony started flirting with him.

"No. No! Steve you go!" Peter hid behind Steve's broad back and pushed at him to go.

Steve chuckled and called back over his shoulder, "We have other customers though," then turned to Tony, "Found anything you like?"

"Which one has berries in it?"

Steve smiled bright at the still sleepy childish curiosity.

"These cupcakes have blueberries, the others are with orange I believe but on the top the chocolate flavoured ones have cherries."

"The cheesecake over there?"

"Not really. I mean it has strawberry syrup on top but cheesecakes usually don't include berries."

"Shame," Tony mumbled.

Steve noticed that more and more people filed into the café – which on the one hand was good for business but on the other hand he preferred it quiet and friendly and without people staring at one another – which they were. However, it only seemed to bother him, Tony didn't pay them much mind even though he was the target of the stares. He was simply too engrossed in choosing his perfect cake. Steve contemplated offering a bag of dried blueberries with the cheesecake Ton looked so longing at – not that he couldn't buy the whole shop if the idea crossed his mind without so much as straining his credit card, but apparently sleepy Tony could behave quite like a normal person.

The coffee machine chose that moment to deem the Major's coffee ready and Tony also came to a decision.

"Both cupcakes and cheesecake then," he announced with a grin.

Steve took his card and offered to bring everything together out to their table. Tony nodded but decided he'd accompany Steve on his short way.

"Who's the nervous kid?"

"He's Peter. Your number one fan," Steve said pushing the small pair of swinging doors open with his hip.

"Really?" Tony looked back at Peter and flashed him one of his trademark half-smiles.

"Really."

"Poor kid."

Steve decided to ignore the strange tone of this note. "If he faints here on me I'll hold you responsible for it."

"Now I feel challenged," Tony smirked under his breath. "Hey, I forgot the introductions!" he smacked himself on the forehead as they reached the table.

"Steve, this is Rhodey, my _other _best friend and occasional nanny."

"Last time I checked you only have one _best_ friend," Rhodey said and stood up to extend his hand for Steve, "Major James Rhodes."

("Show off," Tony muttered under his breath.)

Steve shook off the urge to stand at attention again and tip it off with a salute too. "Steve Rogers," he bit off the Captain part – that even though he never had the occasion to use it automatically came to his tongue even two years into his discharge. It's all Tony's fault for calling him different versions of Captain all the time.

The gears of his mind slowly put the small pieces of information he knew about this man. Tony had mentioned him in the interview… what did he say? They were going to the same university and he was the one who used to beat some sense into Tony's thick skull…

"Well, Pepper _is_ my best friend and I believe she prefers to stay No1. so that leaves you honeybear as No2. —"

"You're full of bullshit today man, you know that?" Rhodey effectively cut off Tony's rant and took his coffee with a nod and a kind glint in his eyes from Steve.

"I feel compelled to draw you off my list of friends."

"Out of all those two? Please, feel free. You're not mine anyway either –" Rhodey suddenly looked surprised and serious at the same time and looked from Tony to Steve and back to Tony quickly while a small glint of amusement sparked up in his dark eyes. "Wait, Steve as The Steve,"( Yes, Steve could hear the capitals) "you only talked about when you were total wasted then couldn't shut up about?"

Steve felt some strange warm feeling stirring in his chest at Tony's embarrassed little grimace he tried to hide with a cough.

"The one and only."

"I'm not sure if I should thank you for keeping him alive or not just yet," Rhodey turned to Steve with a grin.

Tony pouted in the background eyeing the suspicious mountain of cream and sugar syrup that hid his coffee.

"You'll certainly curse me when you have to deal with Tony on a sugar high," Steve said smiling. It was good to know that there were people who meant a constant presence in Tony's life, and it was even better that such people could handle him.

"It's coffee and as horrible as he is, they make a perfect match."

Tony grumbled something on the other end about coffees and quality.

"It's easier to have a talk with him when he's just as stubborn as usual and better concentrated."

"It would be much easier if you'd finally bring me something acceptable to sign."

"The military is trying very hard Tony –"

"Yes to push contracts down my throat," Tony snapped then just as a side-note looked up at Steve, "Rhodey is the military liaison at Stark Industries."

"Because you refuse to have more than one meeting with anyone else."

"I only haven't kicked your sorry ass out yet because we're friends. But man, do you ever read what shit you bring me?"

"Of course I do. And from the last pack you should have agreed on at least two if not three."

Steve politely excused himself before the two would get too engulfed in their argument about military contracts.

When their 30 minutes break was over Tony's blood sugar level was as high as the Mount Everest and he was bouncing on the balls of his feet and gesticulating so wide poor Peter could barely duck out of his way with a tray of glasses. From the suffering groan of Major Rhodes Tony's babbling hadn't made any sense to anyone but himself anymore. Rhodey was on the phone – probably warning Pepper Potts about Tony's current state – but he still spared a friendly farewell wave to Steve.

Steve decided he liked Tony's friend.

* * *

It became a habit that Tony and Steve called each other once a day.

(In the beginning Tony called Steve more often, because "accidentally" he set Steve's number on dial-when-you-need-someone-to-moan-about-things-yo ur-other-friends-just-give-you-The-Look-for, and then Steve decided to pay back by calling Tony _every_ single time he had some trouble making out his illegible handwriting. (Tony surprisingly answered every time.) _Then _it became a habit. Quite quickly. In a day.)

* * *

Steve listened to the rings of the dial.

Three. Four.

Maybe he should just hang up. Tony always picked up after three tops, so he must be sleeping for once. Miracles happen after all, and if there was a time when Tony was up earlier than Steve (even if Steve didn't really count that occasion, because Tony hadn't been sleeping, so it's entirely different) so it can also happen that Steve is up later than the billionaire. Tony had a lot of things to do after all and they never seemed to ebb. Steve once caught a glance of Tony's schedule and even if Tony attended only half of the meetings as he claimed (but since he was still alive it must be at least 2/3 of them in real) it still made Steve wince. On top of that whenever Steve decided to call him in the middle of the night and also in the morning when Tony was _still_ awake –

The guy definitely needed sleep—

"Hey Cap," the drowsy tone interrupted his thoughts.

It was followed up by a slurry curse of another voice.

"Why can't you switch the damn thing off? I thought we were sleeping."

Steve felt immediately terrible.

"**We were**. So. Wassup?"

Damn, Tony was with someone! Did terrible have any other levels? Because Steve felt even worse than terrible now. Awkward and embarrassed topped off by something dark and bitter he refused to name but it was still awoken by his newest realization.

"Sorry!" Based on the twin groans from the other end Steve exclaimed too loud so he cut back on the volume as he spoke up again, "I'm sorry. I didn't want to bother, really. I'll just hang up and let you go back to sleep—"

"Stebe—"Tony started on a whiny tone, "Don't hang up on me, Steve."

"No, I'll just do that, sorry, I'll call back in the morning."

"Don't—!"

"Gimme that," a short pause of wrestling, grunting and whining on Tony's end later the second voice spoke again.

"Please, Steve don't. I won't be able to put him back to sleep if you don't tell him why you called." It was Rhodey. Major Rhodes. Now that his voice wasn't so raspy by sleep Steve could recognize him as Tony's _other _best friend.

"O-okay" Steve stammered out embarrassed. Still that other unnamed feeling didn't want to dissolve.

"Tony!"

It was Steve's turn to wince away from the phone after the exclamation.

"What?" Tony sounded offended, "_You_'re squirming too much. 've never complained before."

"If you want to use my shoulder as your pillow shave first!"

"Not a chance. Don't be so grumpy Platypus, gimme Steve back."

There was a sigh – Rhodey – a thump – Rhodey smacking Tony probably on the head – and yet another whine – Tony.

"Sorry babe, what's up?" Tony's voice didn't clear up and was half-muffled by Rhodey's shoulder, Steve suspected. Finally the uncomfortable, disturbing and highly likely jealous feeling was a bit blunted by the affection in that drowsy tone. "Don't worry you're not bothering, otherwise you wouldn't have my number. I was just near Philly and dropped by for a visit at mum's – I mean Rhodey's mum, but she sorta adopted me for the breaks at MIT and stayed here the night."

Tony's brain to mouth filter was functioning even worse while half-asleep.

"And would have died if you had to sleep alone," Rhodey groaned, but StarkPhones were really good to pick up all the surrounding sounds.

"Okay. Umm. I only called – It's not that important," Tony made an indignant noise that effectively shut Steve up. "Umm, so I was just going through your notes and couldn't read all of them. And I'd just feel bad if I had to make up all the numbers, you know?"

Steve felt his ears burning. It was a pretty petty issue to fuss about, especially that he dared to deem it so important that it can't wait until morning. While in real he just wanted to talk to Tony a bit – it helped him fall asleep – and now he felt bad that he woke Tony up when he finally got some sleep, even if Rhodey possibly had to haul him off to bed. And the bad feeling over this thought clenched his guts, which didn't ease his situation at all, no matter how much he liked Rhodey and that Tony had such good friend, the picture of Tony curled up at the other man's shoulder was too disturbing –

-until Tony spoke up again on that special way that ensured Steve that he was the middle of Tony's universe.

"It's all right," Tony murmured gently, "Bring it on, baby, I'll help you out anytime."

"It's really no big deal, Tony if you'd rather not –"

"Steve, it's actually easier now. My mind is finally one-tracked. It's easier to concentrate y'know? And I'm always happy to help you sweetheart."

"They are just numbers," Steve mumbled but couldn't decide as he reached out to tug the crazy sheets in front of himself who he was trying to convince.

"I can recite the Fibonacci over 86 267 571 272 in my sleep, so. Shoot."

The word after that impossible number was soft and light and warm and so well aimed that Steve couldn't hang up even if his room was set on fire that very moment. If Tony's voice was so gentle the whole time murmuring the correct equations –

This promise was enough to make him float.

It was fulfilling itself. The single numbers and alphabetical and sometime Greek symbols filled Steve's ear and soon they were flying on their own, Tony murmuring altered equations, carefully and gently instructing Steve where to draw the lines.

By the time the words blurred into an unintelligible slur and then turned into soft snoring Steve's head was resting on top of his desk, eyes dazed by a distant dreamy fog a soft smile tugging at the edge of his mouth.

Wibbly-wobbly lines and equations.

They made Steve stupidly content and happy already half-swallowed by dream-land as he eventually hung up.

* * *

The happenings of last night made Steve forget how fast Tony could travel.

Well in correct order the first surprise came in the form of Bucky standing dressed up in his doorway, grinning at him conspiratorially with that mischievous glint into his eyes that's always made him the girls' favourite. Bucky frowned at Steve as he took in his friend's attire, rumpled shirt, messy hair and the worn look on his face. The next hour Bucky made it his mission to get Steve ready for the party.

That's the second surprise. Steve totally forgot about the party he promised Bucky. He wondered standing under the spray of the shower how he'd managed that. Bucky had been calling him since Wednesday to make sure his best friend won't back off. Then he remembered Tony. Yesterday Tony was still in Philadelphia. Was he going to come back to New York just to go for a party with Steve and Bucky? Jesus, what was Steve thinking to invite the two of them along?

The third and biggest surprise greeted Steve after Bucky stirred him out of the apartment and they were faced with Tony Stark dressed in casual black jeans, shirt and suit jacket with his irreplaceable Aviators grinning at them as he pushed himself off of the hood of the sleek white Audi.

"Hey guys," Tony waved.

Bucky just waved back and clapped Steve on the back to get him moving again.

"Hi, wow," Steve stammered and he'd slap himself for sounding so stupid. He wasn't a junior in the face of the one he adored! "Weren't you in Philadelphia the last night?"

"I was," Tony grinned. "But Rhodey kicked me out because he didn't want to spend his leave listening to Pepper screaming at me through his webcam. You need a ride?"

"Isn't it too small for all of us?" Steve eyed the shiny car suspiciously.

"It's bigger on the inside," Tony said and opened the door, "Barnes you get the backseat."

"That's not fair," Bucky protested, but Tony interrupted him with a shrug.

"Either that or you stay here."

"But if it wasn't for me, Steve would be still covered in paint."

"This is why I offered you the seat and not the back next to the engine. And trust me, people say it scares them for life riding shotgun next to me."

This seemed to convince Bucky to crawl to the back. Tony pushed the front seat back to its place and held the door open to Steve. Steve gave him a strange look at that but Tony just winked and smiled even broader.

"Do we have a plan for how we'll get back?" Steve asked as he buckled his seatbelt. He glared at Tony as the other promptly skipped it and just started the engine.

"I'll drive you home if that's what you're worried about," Tony said checking the rear mirror upon Bucky's grunt that the engine purred to life just behind his back and it was tickling.

"I don't think it's a good idea," Steve frowned and tried his best to suppress the urge to lecture his friend about driving after drinking.

"I have experience driving drunk, and let me tell you, there are people who claim I drive safer drunk than sober. I can outdrink anyone and still drive better than them. I haven't crushed any cars drunk," seeing the twin horrified looks on both Bucky and Steve Tony laughed and smacked Steve lightly on the shoulder while he drew ahead a Sedan on a smaller space than it should be possible, "I won't drink, boy scout," and took the next corner at such speed that flattened both Steve and Bucky on the window.

Steve was about to get what Tony meant about riding shotgun next to him…

* * *

**A/N:** So second chapter and we still don't have anything going on. Next chapter, I promise!

What I don't promise is when I'll upload next. I have a Frostiron fic (still tha same) that still needs a lot of work to be done and for that I have a deadline. So I'll disappear again. (Plus my internet access is an unstable thing too so...)

I hope you still like it and **thank you for sticking along so far! **:))


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